THE BOOK-HUNTER
etc








THE BOOK-HUNTER
etc
BY JOHN  HILL BURTON
WJi(tb abbftfonat Notes
BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE
NEW YORK
SHELDON AND COMPANY 335 BROADWAY
1863




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by
SHELDON AND COMPANY,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON.




PREFATORY NOTE
TO THIS EDITION.
ROM the beginning books have been
reckoned almost among the necessaries of life by the people of this country. Of later years they have become
objects of taste and luxury, and of collection for
the purpose of special study. This disposition to
possess books other than standard works of reference and the miscellaneous literature of the day
is increasing rapidly among us; and the desire is
very generally accompanied, at least in a certain
degree, by the means for its gratification.  To all
those who have this taste, and to many who have it
not, the following desultory dissertation on books,
book-collecting, and book-collectors, cannot fail to
be welcome for its always interesting, often serviceable, and sometimes amusing, information. Its influence upon those whose brains are touched with
bibliomania cannot fail to be good; for it deals
firmly, though gently, with their cherished folly,
6




vi            PREFATORY NOTE.
and leads them away from  that petty dilettanteism into which a love of rare and beautiful books
is apt to fall, toward a manly and sensible indulgence of their inclination. The true book-lover
will delight in the outside as well as the inside of
his treasures; and he is more than mortal, if he
does not glory a little in their accumulation, "for
to have meny is a plesaunt thynge;" but he has
passed a perilous line whose books have become to
him other than the means and signs of culture, or
the loved companions of his solitude.  Against
that danger there is in the following pages many
a wholesome warning.
It must be confessed, however, that there is
much in this book which, though good in itself,
is very wide of its main purpose.  Not to speak
of previous pages, the connection of the chapters
upon John Spalding and Robert Wodrow with a
dissertation upon bibliomania is of the slenderest; while the thread which served as the author's
clue in passing to the curious and interesting accounts of the Early Northern Saints and the
Early British Church Architecture is to my eye
quite invisible.  The " etc." of the title-page
must be accepted in its widest meaning.  " The
Book-Hunter and other things " is certainly a
title broad enough to shelter any and all of the




PREFATORY NOTE.               vii
topics that have been treated under it; for in fact
it stops only just short of de omnibus rebus et
quibusdam  aliis.  The author, conscious of this,
half apologizes for making the book so large and
so discursive; and if he had reason, how much
more have I, who have added to its length and
even to its discursiveness!  But as he had concerned himself not a little with the social and
literary condition of this country, and had almost
always led his reader to false conclusions, it was
thought that in an edition intended for the United
States these should be corrected.  The doing of
this naturally led to the doing of a little more;
the occupation beguiled hours of suffering when
more serious and exacting duties could not be attended to; and the result may perhaps be deemed
not entirely superfluous, except by that sort of
men who would regard it as the greatest glory of
the compilers of the Justinian Pandects that they
reduced three millions of lines in the works of
their predecessors to one hundred and fifty thousand. An excellent work, truly; and they who did
it, public benefactors, and worthy of all the praise
which their record of the feat silently solicited
and artfully won. Yet in the interests of us all
there must be some limit to the spare diet of words
upon which some folk would have literature exist;




viii          PREFATORY NOTE.
else, being reduced to its one straw, it will cease
from  off the earth, and the functions of author
and reader will cease together with it:-a catastrophe sufficiently remote, however, to allow our
solicitude to slumber. And had I possessed the
needful information before the body of the book
was put in type, instead of one less, I should have
written one more note, to say that among the
Mighty Book-Hunters of whom the author gives
such lively sketches, Thomas Papaverius, the most
interesting of them all, is intended for Thomas De
Quincey; who, indeed, seems rather to have been
a robber, a ravisher, and a destroyer of books than
a collector or even a hunter of them,- a very
Ishmaelite, against whom, in spite of what he was
and what he wrote, all book-lovers had common
cause. I-e on the one side and the Irish Vampire
on the other furnish extreme examples of what
the book-hunter should not be. None of the other
sketches have yet been publicly identified by the
British critics.
For the Index which adds value to this edition
the reader is indebted to F. F. HEARD, Esq., of
the Boston Bar.  The additional notes are inclosed
in brackets, and signed with the last initial of their
writer.                           R. G. W.




A D VEiR TISEIIENT.
i HIS book owes its existence to a
concurrence of accidents.  The
Author had the honor of contributing to Blackwood's Magazine some
sketches of the ways of book-collectors,
scholars, literary investigators, desultory
readers, and other persons whose pursuits
revolve round books and literature. Some
friendly criticisms having induced him to
reflect on what he had written, he saw, as
will generally happen in such cases, that
were he to go over the ground again, he
would find much that he would desire to
alter, and  many things that might be
added.  He therefore resolved to recast
the whole and expand it to the compass




x           AD VERTISEMENT.
of a thin volume. The thin volume, however, fattened as it approached maturity,
until it reached the respectable dimensions
in which it now awaits the appreciation
of any reader who may think it worthy
of his attention.




C ONTENTPS.
Vart a, -N fS Wature.
INTRODUCTORY..     o.,    I
A VISION OF MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.      12
REMINISCENCES.                  56
CLASSIFICATION.                             61
THE PROWLER AND THE AUCTION-HAUNTER          82
Woart Hi.-oig functions.
THE HOBBY...... 96
THE DESULTORY READER, OR BOHEMIAN OF LITERATURE.                                   104
THE COLLECTOR AND THE SCHOLAR               112
THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST                 122
PRETENDERS....                   162
HIS ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE CREATION OF LIBRARIES 171
THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE              215
LIBRARIANS....... 234




ii  CONTENTS;
wart UX3S,-N.      slub.
CLUBS IN GENERAL..                   240
THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK-CLUBS.              247
THE ROXBURGHE CLUB...         261
SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN...           280
3art Ky. —300oo(ttut Afterature.
GENERALITIES......                           304
JOHN SPALDING......                          323
ROBERT WODROW.....                            331
THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS                     346
SERMONS IN STONES.......394




THE: B OK-HUNTER.
PART I.- HIS NA TURE.
Jntroburtor.
HE Title under which the discursive,
contents of the following pages are,
ranged, has no better justification)
than that it suited myself.  I hope
it may also suit the reader. If they
laid any claim to a scientific character, or professed
to contain an exposition of any established department of knowledge, it might have been their privilege to appear under a title of Greek derivation,,
with all the dignities and immunities conceded by
immemorial deference to this stamp of scientific
rank. I not only, however, consider my own trifles
unworthy of such a dignity, but am inclined to strip
it from other productions which might appear to
have a more appropriate claim to it. No doubt, the
ductile inflections and wonderful facilities for decomposition and reconstruction make Greek an excellent vehicle of scientific precision, and the use of
1




2                HIS NATURE.
a dead language saves your nomenclature from being confounded with your common talk. The use
of a Greek derivative gives notice that you are
scientific. If you speak of an acanthopterygian, it
is plain that you are not discussing perch in refer*ence to its culinary merits; and if you make an
allusion to monomyarian malacology, it will not
naturally be supposed to have reference to the cooking of oyster-sauce.
Like many other meritorious things, however,
-Greek nomenclature is much abused. The very
reverence it is held in- the strong disinclination
on the part of the public to question the accuracy.of anything stated under the shadow of a Greek
name, or to doubt the infallibility of the man who
uses it-makes this kind of nomenclature the fre-,quent protector of fallacies and quackeries.  It is,an instrument for silencing inquiry and handing
over the judgment to implicit belief. Get the passive student once into palmozooilogy, and he takes
-your other hard names - your ichthyodorulite, trogontherium, lepidodendron, and bothrodendron —
-for granted, contemplating them, indeed, with a kind
of religious awe or devotional reverence. If it be a
question whether a term is categorematic, or is of a
quite opposite description, and ought to be described:as suncategorematic, one may take up a very absolute positive position without finding many people,prepared to assail it.
Antiquarianism, which used to be an easy-going,
slipshod sort of pursuit, has sought this all-powerful




INTRODUCTORY.
protection and called itself Archeology.  An obliterated manuscript written over again is called a
palimpsest, and the man who can restore and read
it a paleographist. The great erect stone on the
moor, which has hitherto defied all learning to find
the faintest trace of the age in which it was erected,
its purpose, or the people who placed it there, seems,
as it were, to be rescued from the heathen darkness
in which it has dwelt, and to be admitted within
the community of scientific truth, by being christened a monolith. If there be any remains of sculpture on the stone, it becomes a lythoglyph or a
hieroglyph; and if the nature and end of this sculpture be quite incomprehensible to the adepts, they
may term it a cryptoglyph, and thus dignify, by
a sort of title of honor, the absoluteness of their
ignorance. It were a pity if any more ingenious
man should afterwards find a key to the mystery,
and destroy the significance of the established nomenclature.
The venders of quack medicines and cosmetics
are aware of the power of Greek nomenclature, and
apparently subsidize scholars of some kind or other
to supply them with the article. A sort of shaving
soap used frequently to be advertised under a title
which was as complexly adjusted a piece of mosaic
work as the geologists or the conchologists ever
turned out.  But perhaps the confidence in the
protective power of Greek designations has just at
this moment reached its climax, in an attempt to
save thieves from punishment by calling them kleptomaniacs.




4                   HIS NATURE.
It is possible that, were I to attempt to dignify
the class of men to whom the following sketches
are devoted by an appropriate scientific title, a
difficulty would start up at the very beginning.
As the reader will perhaps see, from the tenor of
my discourse, I would find it difficult to say whether
I should give them a good name or a bad —to speak
more scientifically, and of course more clearly,
whether I should characterize them by a predicate
eulogistic, or a predicate dyslogistic. On the whole,
I am content with my first idea, and shall stick to
the title of "The Book-Hunter." I
Few  wiser things have ever been said than that
remark of Byron's, that " man is an unfortunate
fellow, and ever will be." Perhaps the originality
of the fundamental idea it expresses may be questioned, on the ground that the same warning has been
enounced in far more solemn language, and from
1 To afford the reader, however, an opportunity of noting at a
glance the appropriate learned terms applicable to the different
sets of persons who meddle with books, I subjoin the following
definitions, as rendered in D'Israeli's Curiosities, from the Chasse
aux Bibliographes et Antiquaires mal advises of Jean Joseph
Rive:
" A bibliognoste, from the Greek, is one knowing in title-pages
and colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed;
the presses whence issued; and all the minutiae of a book." -
" A bibliographe is a describer of books and other literary arrangements."- "A bibliomane is an indiscriminate accumula*tor, who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained and purseheavy." - " A bibliophile, the lover of books, is the only one in
the class who appears to read them for his own pleasure."" A bibliotaphe buries his books, by keeping them under lock,
or framing them in glass cases."




INTRODUCTORY.                  5
a far more august authority. But there is originality in the vulgar, everyday-world way of putting
the idea; and this makes it suit the present purpose,
in which, a human frailty having to be dealt with,
there is no intention to be either devout or philosophical about it, but to treat it in a thoroughly
worldly and practical tone, and in this temper to
judge of its place among the defects and ills to
which flesh is heir. It were better, perhaps, if we
human creatures sometimes did this, and discussed
our common frailties as each himself partaking of
them, than that we should mount, as we are so apt
to do, into the clouds of theology or of ethics, according as our temperament and training are of
the serious or of the intellectual order.  True,
there are many of our brethren violently ready to
proclaim themselves frail mortals, miserable sinners,
and no better, in theological phraseology, than the
greatest of criminals. But such has been my own
unfortunate experience in life, that whenever I find
a man coming forward with these self-denunciations
on his lips, I am prepared for an exhibition of
intolerance, spiritual pride, and envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, towards any poor fellow-creature who has floundered a little out of the
straight path, and, being all too conscious of his
errors, is not prepared to proclaim them in those
broad emphatic terms which come so readily to
the lips of the censors, who at heart believe themselves spotless, —just as complaints about poverty,
and inability to buy this and that, come from




6                HIS NATURE.
the fat lips of the millionnaire, when he shows you
his gallery of pictures, his stud, and his forcingframes.
No; it is hard to choose between the two. The
man who has no defect or crack in his character,no tinge of even the minor immoralities, - no fantastic humor, carrying him sometimes off his feet,
— no preposterous hobby —such a man, walking
straight along the surface of this world in the arc
of a circle, is a very dangerous character, no doubt;
of such all children, dogs, simpletons, and other
creatures that have the instinct of the odious in
their nature, feel an innate loathing. And yet it
is questionable if your perfectionized Sir Charles
Grandison is quite so dangerous a character as your
" miserable sinner," vociferously conscious that he
is the frailest of the frail, and that he can do no
good thing of himself.  And indeed, in practice,
the external symptoms of these two characteristics
have been known so to alternate in one disposition
as to render it evident that each is but the same
moral nature under a different external aspect,the mask, cowl, varnish, crust, or whatever you
like to call it, having been adapted to the external
conditions of the man, - that is, to the society he
mixes in, the set he belongs to, the habits of the
age, and the way in which he proposes to get on
in life. It is when the occasion arises for the
mask being thrown aside, or when the internal
passions burst like a volcano through the crust,
that terrible events take place, and the world




INTRODUCTORY.                        7
throbs with the excitement of some wonderful criminal trial.1
1 It has often been observed that it is among the Society of
Friends, who keep so tight a rein on the passions and propensities, that these make the most terrible work when they break
loose. De Quincey, in one of his essays on his contemporaries,
giving a sketch of a man of great genius and high scholarship,
whose life was early clouded by insanity, gives some curious
statements about the effects of the system of rigid restraint exercised by the Society of Friends, which I am not prepared
either to support or contradict. After describing the system of
restraint itself, he says, "This is known, but it is not equally
known that this unnatural restraint, falling into collision with
two forces at once, -the force of passion and of youth, -- not
unfrequently records its own injurious tendencies, and publishes
the rebellious movements of nature by distinct and anomalous
diseases. And, further, I have been assured, upon most excellent authority, that these diseases - strange and elaborate affections of the nervous system —are found exclusively among the
young men and women of the Quaker Society; that they are
known and understood exclusively amongst physicians who
have practised in great towns having a large Quaker population, such as Birmingham; that they assume a new type and
a more inveterate character in the second or third generation,
to whom this fatal inheritance is often transmitted; and, finally,
that if this class of nervous derangements does not increase so
much as to attract public attention, it is simply because the
community itself —the Quaker body - does not increase, but,
on the contrary, is rather on the wane."
There exist many good stories which have for their point the
passions of the natural man breaking forth, in members of this
persuasion, in a shape more droll than distressing. One of the
best of these is a north-country anecdote, preserved by Francis,
Douglas in his description of tile east coast of Scotland. The.
hero was the first Quaker of that Barclay family which pro-.
duced the apologist and the pugilist. He was a colonel in the.
great civil wars, and had seen wild work in his day; but in his,
old age a change came over him, and, becoming a follower of
George Fox, he retired to spend his old age on his ancestral.




8                   HIS NATURE.
The present, however, is not an inquiry into the
first principles either of ethics or of physiology.
The object of this rambling preamble is to win
from the reader a morsel of genial fellow-feeling
towards the human frailty which we are going to
examine and lay bare before him, trusting that he
will treat it neither with the haughty disdain of
the immaculate, nor the grim  charity of the "miserable sinner:" that he may even, when sighing
over it as a failing, yet kindly remember that, in
comparison with many others, it is a failing that
leans to virtue's side.   It will not demand  that
breadth of charity which even rather rigid fathers
are permitted to exercise by the license of the existing school of French fiction.'   Neither will it
exact such extensive toleration as that of the old
Aberdeen laird's wife, who, when her sister lairdestate in Kincardineshire. Here it came to pass that a brother
laird thought the old Quaker could be easily done, and began
to encroach upon his marches. Barclay, a strong man, with
the iron sinews of his race, and their fierce spirit still burning
in his eyes, strode up to the encroacher, and, with a grim smile,
spoke thus: "Friend, thou knowest that I have become a man
of peace and have relinquished strife, and therefore thou art
endeavoring to take what is not thine own, but mine, because
thou believest that, having abjured the arm of the flesh, I cannot
hinder thee. And yet, as thy friend, I advise thee to desist; for
shouldst thou succeed in rousing the old Adaim within me, perchance lie may prove too strong, not only for me, but for thee."
There was no use of attempting to answer such an argument.
1 In the renowned Dame aux Camdlias, the respectable, rigid,
and rather indignant father addresses his erring son thus: " Que
vous ayez une maitresse, c'est fort bien; que vous la payiez com-me un galant homme doit payer l'amour d'une fille entretenue -




INTRODUCTORY.                       9
esses were enriching the tea-table conversation with
broad descriptions of the abominable vices of their
several spouses, said her own "was just a gueed,
weel-tempered, couthy, queat, innocent, daedlin,
drucken body —wi' nae ill practices aboot him
ava!"   But all things in their own time and place.
To understand the due weight and bearing of this
feeling of optimism, it is necessary to remember
that its happy owner had probably spent her youth
in that golden age when it was deemed churlish
to bottle the claret, and each filled his stoup at the
fountain of the flowing hogshead; and if the darker
days of dear claret came upon her times, there was
still to fall back upon the silver age of smuggled
usquebaugh, when the types of a really hospitable
country-house were an anker of whiskey always on
the spigot, a caldron ever on the bubble with boilc'est on ne pent mieux; mais que vous oubliez les choses les
plus saintes pour elle, que vous permettiez que la bruit de votre
vie scandaleuse arrive jusqu'au fond de ma province, et jette
l'ombre d'une tache sur le nom honorable que je vous ai donne
— voila ce qui ne peut etre, voilia ce qui ne sera pas."
So even the French novelists draw the line " somewhere," and
in other departments of morals they may be found drawing it
closer than many good uncharitable Christians among us would
wish. In one very popular novel, the victim spends his wife's
fortune at the gaming-table, leaves her to starve, lives with another woman, and, having committed forgery, plots with the
Mephistopheles of the story to buy his own safety at the price
of his wife's honor. This might seem bad enough, but worse
remains. It is told in a smothered whisper, by the faithful domestic, to the horrified family, that he has reason to suspect his
master of having indulged, once at least, if not oftener, in brandy-and-water!




10               HIS NATURE.
ing water, and a cask of sugar with a spade in it,all for the manufacture of toddy.
But, in truth, the feeling that in some quarters
might be raised by this cool way of treating such
social phenomena, excites some misgivings about
calling attention to any kind of human frailty or
folly, since the world is full of people who are prepared to deal with and cure it, provided only that
they are to have their own way with the disease
and the patient, and that they shall enjoy the simple privilege of locking him up, dieting him, and
taking possession of his worldly goods and interests,
as one who, by his irrational habits, or his outrages
on the laws of physiology, or the fitness of things,
or some other neology, has satisfactorily established
his utter incapacity to take charge of his own
affairs. No! This is not a cruel age; the rack,
the wheel, the boot, the thumbikins, even the pillory and the stocks, have disappeared; death-punishment is dwindling away; and if convicts have
not their full rations of cooked meat, or get damaged coffee or sour milk, or are inadequately supplied with flannels and clean linen, there will be
an outcry and an inquiry, and a Secretary of State
will lose a percentage of his influence, and learn to
look better after the administration of patronage.
But, at the same time, the area of punishment -or
of " treatment," as it is mildly termed - becomes
alarmingly widened, and people require to look
sharply into themselves lest they should be tainted
with any little frailty or peculiarity which may




INTRODUCTORY.               11
transfer them from the class of free self-regulators
to that of persons " under treatment." In Owen's
parallelograms there were to be no prisons: he admitted no power in one man to inflict punishment
upon another for merely obeying the dictates of
natural propensities which could not be resisted.
But, at the same time, there were to be " hospitals"
in which not only the physically diseased, but also
the mentally and morally diseased, were to be detained until they were cured; and when we reflect
that the laws of the parallelogram were very stringent and minute, and required to be absolutely enforced to the letter, otherwise the whole machinery
of society would come to pieces, like a watch with
a broken spring, - it is clear that these hospitals
would have contained a very large proportion of
the unrationalized population.
There is rather an alarming amount of this sort
of communism now among us; and it is therefore
with some little misgiving that one sets down any
thing that may betray a brother's weakness, and lay
bare the diagnosis of a human frailty. Indeed, the
bad name that proverbially hangs the dog has already been given to it, for bibliomania is older in
the technology of this kind of nosology than dipsomania, which is now understood to be an almost
established ground for seclusion, and deprivation of
the management of one's own affairs. There is one
ground of consolation, however, - the people who,
being all right themselves, have undertaken the
duty of keeping in order the rest of the world,




12              HIS NATURE.
have far too serious a task in hand to afford time
for idle reading. There is a good chance, therefore, that this little book may pass them unnoticed,
and the harmless class on whose peculiar frailties
the present occasion is taken for devoting a gentle
and kindly exposition, may yet be permitted to go
at large.
So having spoken, I now propose to make the
reader acquainted with some characteristic specimens of the class.
~2l  tliion of ftigolt~ took-junters.
[    S the first case, let us summon from the
4  shades my venerable friend, Archdeacon
~   Meadow, as he was in the body. You'   see him now-tall, straight, and meagre,
but with a grim dignity in his air which warms into
benignity as he inspects a pretty little, clean Elzevir,
or a tall, portly Stephens, concluding his inward estimate of the prize with a peculiar grunting chuckle,
known by the initiated to be an important announcement. This is no doubt one of the milder and more
inoffensive types, but still a thoroughly confirmed
and obstinate case. Its parallel to the classes who
are to be taken charge of by their wiser neighbors
is only too close and awful; for have not sometimes
the female members of his household been known
on occasion of some domestic emergency —or, it




3MIGHTY BOOK-i UNTERS.          13
may be, for mere sake of keeping the lost man out
of mischief —to have been searching for him on
from bookstall unto bookstall, just as the mothers,
wives, and daughters of other lost men hunt them
through their favorite taverns? Then, again, can
one forget that occasion of his going to London to
be examined by a committee of the House of Commons, when he suddenly disappeared with all his
money in his pocket, and returned penniless, followed by a wagon containing 372 copies of rare
editions of the Bible?  All were fish that came to
his net. At one time you might find him securing
a minnow for sixpence at a stall; and presently
afterwards he outbids some princely collector, and
secures with frantic impetuosity, " at any price," a
great fish he has been patiently watching year after
year. His hunting-grounds were wide and distant,
and there were mysterious rumors about the numbers of copies, all identically the same in edition
and minor individualities, which he possessed of
certain books. I have known him, indeed, when
beaten at an auction, turn round resignedly and
say, " Well, so be it - but I dare say I have ten
or twelve copies at home, if I could lay hands on
them."
It is a matter of extreme anxiety to his friends,
and, if he have a well-constituted mind, of sad misgiving to himself, when the collector buys his first
dtuplicate. It is like the first secret dram swallowed
in the forenoon —the first pawning of the silver
spoons - or any other terrible first step downwards




14               HIS NATURE.
you may please to liken it to. There is no hope for
the patient after this. It rends at once the veil of
decorum spun out of the flimsy sophisms by which
he has been deceiving his friends, and partially deceiving himself, into the belief that his previous
purchases were necessary, or at all events serviceable, for professional and literary purposes. He now
becomes shameless and hardened; and it is observable in the career of this class of unfortunates, that
the first act of duplicity is immediately followed by
an access of the disorder, and a reckless abandonment to its propensities. The Archdeacon had long
passed this stage ere he crossed my path, and had
become thoroughly hardened. He was not remarkable for local attachment; and in moving from place
to place, his spoil, packed in innumerable great boxes,
sometimes followed him, to remain unreleased during
the whole period of his tarrying in his new abode,
so that they were removed to the next stage of his
journey through life with modified inconvenience.
Cruel as it may seem, I must yet notice another
and a peculiar vagary of his malady.  He had resolved, at least once in his life, to part with a considerable proportion of his collection- better to
suffer the anguish of such an act than endure the
fretting of continued restraint. There was a wondrous sale by auction accordingly; it was something
like what may have occurred at the dissolution of
the monasteries at the Reformation, or when the
contents of some time-honored public library were
realized at the period of the French Revolution.




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             15
Before the affair was over, the Archdeacon himself
made his appearance in the midst of the miscellaneous self-invited guests who were making free with
his treasures. He pretended, honest man, to be a
mere casual spectator, who, having seen, in passing,
the announcement of a sale by auction, stepped in
like the rest of the public. By degrees he got excited, gasped once or twice as if mastering some
desperate impulse, and at length fairly bade. He
could not brazen out the effect of this escapade,
however, and disappeared from the scene. It was
remarked, however, that an unusual number of lots
were afterwards knocked down to a military gentleman, who seemed to have left portentously large orders with the auctioneer. Some curious suspicions
began to arise, which were settled by that presiding
genius bending over his rostrum, and explaining in
a confidential whisper that the military hero was in
reality a pillar of the church so disguised.
The Archdeacon lay under what, among a portion of the victims of his malady, was deemed a
heavy scandal. He was suspected of reading his
own books -that is to say, when he could get at
them; for there are those who may still remember
his rather shamefaced apparition of an evening, petitioning, somewhat in the tone with which an old
schoolfellow down in the world requests your assistance to help him to go to York to get an appointment-petitioning for the loan of a volume of which
he could not deny that he possessed numberless copies lurking in divers parts of his vast collection.




16              HIS NATURE.
This reputation of reading the books in his collection, which should be sacred to external inspection
solely, is, with a certain school of book-collectors, a
scandal, such as it would be among a hunting set to
hint that a man had killed a fox. In the dialogues,
not always the most entertaining, of Dibdlin's Bibliomnania, there is this short passage: "'I will
frankly confess,' rejoined Lysander,'that I am
an arrant bibliomaniaec,-that I love books dearly,
— that the very sight, touch, and mere perusal'
-'Hold, my friend,' again exclaimed Philemon;'you have renounced your profession —you
talk of reading books —do bibliomaniacs ever read
books?'"
Yes, the Archdeacon read books,-he devoured
them; and he did so to full prolific purpose. His
was a mind enriched with varied learning, which he
gave forth with full, strong, easy flow, like an inexhaustible perennial spring coming from inner reservoirs, never dry, yet too capacious to exhibit the
brawling, bubbling symptoms of repletion. It was
from a majestic heedlessness of the busy world and
its fame that he got the character of indolence, and
was set down as one who would leave no lasting
memorial of his great learning. But when he died,
it was not altogether without leaving a sign; for
from the casual droppings of his pen has been preserved enough to signify to many generations of
students in the walk he chiefly affected how richly
his mind was stored, and how much fresh matter
there is in those fields of inquiry where compilers




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.              17
have left their dreary tracks, for ardent students to
cultivate into a rich harvest.  In him  truly the
bibliomania may be counted among the many illustrations of the truth so often moralized on, that the
highest natures are not exempt from human frailty
in some shape or other.
Let us now summon the shade of another departed victim - Fitzpatrick Smart, Esq.  He, too,,
through a long.life, had been a vigilant and enthusiastic collector, but after a totally different fashion.
He was far from omnivorous.  He had a principle
of selection peculiar and separate from all other's,
as was his own individuality from other men's.
You could not classify his library according to any
of the accepted nomenclatures peculiar to the initiated.  He was not a black-letter man, or a tallcopyist, or an uncut man, or a rough-edge man,
or an early-English-dramatist, or an Elzevirian, or
a broadsider, or a pasquinader, or an old-brown-calf
man, or a Grangerite, or a tawny-moroccoite, or a
gilt-topper, a marbled-insider, or an editio 2princeps
man; neither did he come under any of the more
vulgar classifications of an antiquarian, or a belleslettres, or a classical collector. There was no way
of defining his peculiar walk save by his own name
— it was the Fitzpatrick-Smart walk.  In fact, it
wound itself in infinite windings through isolated
spots of literary scenery, if we may so speak, in
which he took a personal interest.  There were
historical events, bits of family history, chiefly of a
tragic or a scandalous kind,- efforts of art or of
2




18               HIS NATURE.
literary genius on which, through some intellectual
law, his mind and memory loved to dwell; and it
was in reference to these that he collected. If the
book were the one desired by him, no anxiety and
toil, no payable price, was to be grudged for its ac-,quisition. If the book were an inch out of his own
~line, it might be trampled in the mire for aught he
cared, be it as rare or costly as it could be.
It was difficult, almost impossible, for others to
predicate what would please this wayward sort of
taste, and he was the torment of the book-caterers,
who were sure of a princely price for the right article, but might have the wrong one thrown in their
teeth with contumely. It was a perilous, but, if
successful, a gratifying thing to present him with
a book.  If it happened to hit his fancy, he felt
the full force of the compliment, and overwhelmed
T-he giver with his courtly thanks. But it required,great observation and tact to fit one for such an,adventure, for the chances against an ordinary
thoughtless gift-maker were thousands to one; and
those who were acquainted with his strange nervous temperament, knew that the existence within
his dwelling-place of any book not of his own special kind, would impart to him the sort of feeling of
uneasy horror which a bee is said to feel when an
earwig comes into its cell. Presentation copies by
authors were among the chronic torments of his
-existence. While the complacent author was perhaps pluming himself on his liberality in making
the judicious gift, the recipient was pouring out all




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             19
his sarcasm, which was not feeble or slight, on the
odious object, and wondering why an author could
have entertained against him so steady and enduring a malice as to take the trouble of writing and
printing all that rubbish with no better object than
disturbing the peace of mind of an inoffensive old
man. Every tribute from such dona ferentes cost
him much uneasiness and some want of sleep- for
what could he do with it? It was impossible to
make merchandise of it, for he was every inch a
gentleman. He could not burn it, for under an
acrid exterior he had a kindly nature. It was believed, indeed, that he had established some limbo
of his own, in which such unwelcome commodities
were subject to a kind of burial or entombment,
where they remained in existence, yet were decidedly outside the circle of his household gods.
These gods were a pantheon of a very extraordinary description, for he was a hunter after other
things besides books.  His acquisitions included
pictures, and the various commodities which, for
want of a distinctive name, auctioneers call "miscellaneous articles of vertu."  He started on his
accumulating career with some old family relics,
and these, perhaps, gave the direction to his subsequent acquisitions, for they were all, like his books,
brought together after some self-willed and peculiar
law of association that pleased himself.  A bad,
even an inferior picture he would not have, - for
his taste was exquisite, - unless, indeed, it had
some strange history about it, adapting it to his




20               HIS NATURE.
wayward fancies, and then he would adopt the badness as a peculiar recommendation, and point it out
with some pungent and appropriate remark to his
friends. But though, with these peculiar exceptions, his works of art were faultless, no dealer
could ever calculate on his buying a picture, however high a work of art or great a bargain. With
his ever-accumulating collection, in which tiny
sculpture and brilliant color predominated, he kept
a sort of fairy world around him. But each one of
the mob of curious things he preserved had some
story linking it with others, or with his peculiar
fancies; and each one had its precise place in a sort
of epos, as certainly as each of the persons in the
confusion of a pantomime or a farce has his own
position and functions.
After all, he was himself his own greatest curiosity. He had come to manhood just after the
period of gold-laced waistcoats, small-clothes, and
shoe-buckles, otherwise he would have been long
a living memorial of these now antique habits. It
happened to be his lot to preserve down to us the
earliest phase of the pantaloon dynasty. So, while
the rest of the world were booted or heavy shod,
his silk-stockinged feet were thrust into pumps of
early Oxford cut, and the predominant garment
was the surtout, blue in color, and of the original
make before it came to be called a frock. Round
his neck was wrapped an ante-Brummelite neckerchief (not a tie), which projected in many wreaths
like a great poultice, - and so he took his walks




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.            21
abroad, a figure which he could himself have turned
into admirable ridicule.
One of the mysteries about him was, that his
clothes, though unlike any other person's, were
always old. This characteristic could not even be
accounted for by the supposition that he had laid
in a sixty years' stock in his youth, for they always
appeared to have been a good deal worn. The very
umbrella was in keeping - it was of green silk, an
obsolete color ten years ago - and the handle was
of a peculiar crosier-like formation in cast-horn,
obviously not obtainable in the market. His face
was ruddy, but not with the ruddiness of youth;
and, bearing on his head a Brutus wig of the lightbrown hair which had long ago legitimately shaded
his brow, when he stood still- except for his linen,
which was snowy white - one might suppose that
he had been shot and stuffed on his return home
from college, and had been sprinkled with the
frowzy mouldiness which time imparts to stuffed
animals and other things, in which a semblance to
the freshness of living nature is vainly attempted to
be preserved.  So if he were motionless; but let
him speak, and the internal freshness was still there,
an ever-blooming garden of intellectual flowers.
His antiquated costume was no longer grotesque
-it harmonized with an antiquated courtesy and
high-bred gentleness of manner, which he had acquired from the best sources, since he had seen
the first company in his day, whether for rank or
genius. And conversation and manner were far




22. HIS NATURE.
from  exhausting his resources.  He had a wonderful pencil - it was potent for the beautiful, the
terrible, and the ridiculous; but it took a wayward
wilful course, like everything else about him. He
had a brilliant pen, too, when he chose to wield it;
but the idea that he should exercise any of these
his gifts in common display before the world, for
any even of the higher motives that make people
desire fame and praise, would have sickened him.
His faculties were his own as much as his collection, and to be used according to his caprice and
pleasure. So fluttered through existence one who,
had it been his fate to have his own bread to make,
might have been a great man. Alas for the end!
Some curious annotations are all that remain of his
literary powers- some drawings and etchings in
private collections all of his artistic.  His collection, with its long train of legends and associations,
came to what he himself must have counted as dispersal. He left it to his housekeeper, who, like a
wise woman, converted it into cash while its mysterious reputation was fresh. Huddled in a great
auction-room, its several catalogued items lay in
humiliating contrast with the decorous order in
which they were wont to be arranged. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Let us now call up a different and a more commonplace type of the book-hunter -it shall be Inchrule Brewer. He is guiltless of all intermeddling
with the contents of books, but in their external
attributes his learning is marvellous. I-e derived




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.                    23
his nickname from the practice of keeping, as his
inseparable pocket-companion, one of those graduated folding measures of length which may often be
seen protruding from the moleskin pocket of the
joiner. He used it at auctions, and on other appropriate occasions, to measure the different elements
of a book - the letter-press - the unprinted margin
- the external expanse of the binding; for to the
perfectly scientific collector all these things are very
significant.l They are, in fact, on record among
the craft, like the pedigrees and physical characteristics recorded in stud-books and short-horn books.
One so accomplished in this kind of analysis could
tell at once, by this criterion, whether the treasure
under the hammer was the same that had been
knocked down before at the Roxburghe sale —the
Askew, Gordonstown, or the Heber, perhaps — or
was veritably an impostor — or was in reality a
new and previously unknown prize well worth contending for.  The minuteness and precision of his
1 Of the copy of the celebrated 1685 Elzevir Ccesar, in the
Imperial Library at Paris, Brunet triumphantly informs us that
it is four inches and ten twelfths in height, and occupies the high
position of being the tallest copy of that volume in the world,
since other illustrious copies put in competition with it have
been found not to exceed four inches and eight, or, at the utmost,
nine, twelfths.
"Ces details," he subjoins, "paroitront sans doute pudrils k
bien des gens: mais puisque c'est la grandeur des marges de
ces sorts de livres qu'en determine la valeur, il faut bien fixer
le maximnum de cette grandeur, afin que les amateurs puissent
apprecier les exemplaires qui approchent plus ou moins de la
mrsure donnee."




24               HIS NATURE.
knowledge excited wonder, and, being anomalous
in the male sex even among collectors, gave occasion to a rumor that its possessor must veritably be
an aged maiden in disguise.
His experience, aided by a heaven-born genius
tending in that direction, rendered him the most
merciless detector of sophisticated books. Nothing,
it might be supposed on first thought, can be a simpler or more easily recognized thing than a book
genuine as printed.  But in the old-book trade
there are opportunities for the exercise of ingenuity inferior only to those which render the picturedealer's and the horse-dealer's functions so mysteriously interesting. Sometimes entire fac-similes are
made of eminent volumes. More commonly, however, the problem is to complete an imperfect copy.
This will be most satisfactorily accomplished, of
course, if another copy can be procured imperfect
also, but not in the same parts. Great ingenuity is
sometimes shown in completing a lightly esteemed
edition with fragments from one highly esteemed.
Sometimes a colophon or a decorated capital has to
be imitated, and bold operators will reprint a page
or two in fac-simile; these operations, of course,
involve the inlaying of paper, judiciously staining
it, and other mysteries. Paris is the great centre.of this kind of work; but it has been pretty extensively pursued in Britain; and the manufacture of first-folio Shakspeares has been nearly as
staple a trade as the getting up of genuine portraits,of Mary Queen of Scots.  It will establish a broad




MIGHITY BOOK-HUNTERS.           25
distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend
the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect
copies of the same book in the hope of finding
materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most
voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favorite
phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the very
faintest " restoration."
Among the elements which constitute the value
of a book — rarity of course being equal- one
might say he counted the binding highest.  He
was not alone in this view, for it would be difficult
to give the uninitiated a conception of the importance attached to this mechanical department of
book-making by the adepts. About a third of Dibdin's Bibliographical D)ecameron is, if I recollect
rightly, devoted to bindings.  There are binders
who have immortalized themselves - as Staggemier, Walther, Payne, Padaloup, Hering, De
Rome, Faulkner, Lewis, Hayday, and Thomson.
Their names may sometimes be found on their
work, not with any particularities, as if they required to make themselves known, but with the
simple brevity of illustrious men. Thus you take
up a morocco-bound work of some eminence, on
the title-page of which the author sets forth his full
name and profession, with the distinctive initials of
certain learned societies to which it is his pride to
belong; but the simple and dignified enunciation,
deeply stamped in his own golden letters, "Bound
by Hayday," is all that that accomplished artist
deigns to tell.




26               HIS NATURE.
And let us,. after all, acknowledge that there
are few men who are entirely above the influence
of binding. No one likes sheep's clothing for his
literature, even if he should not aspire to russia or
morocco. Adam Smith, one of the least showy of
men, confessed himself to be a beau in his books.
Perhaps the majority of men of letters are so to
some extent, though poets are apt to be ragamuffins. It was Thomson, I believe, who used to cut
the leaves with the snuffers. Perhaps an event in
his early career may have soured him of the proprieties. It is said that he had an uncle, a clever
active mechanic, who could do many things with
his hands, and contemplated James's indolent,
dreamy, "feckless" character with impatient disgust.  When the first of The Seasons- -" Winter "
it was, I believe — had been completed at press,
Jamie thought, by a presentation copy, to triumph
over his uncle's scepticism, and to propitiate his
good opinion he had the book handsomely bound.
The old man never looked inside, or asked what
the book was about, but, turning it round and
round with his fingers in gratified admiration, exclaimed- "Come, is that really our Jamie's doin'
now? - weel, I never thought the cratur wad hae
had the handicraft to do the like! "
The feeling by which this worthy man was influenced was a mere sensible practical respect for good
workmanship.  The aspirations of the collectors,
however, in this matter, go out of the boundaries
of the sphere of the utilitarian into that of the




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.            27
aVsthetic. Their priests and prophets, by the way,
do not seem to be aware how far back this veneration for the coverings of books may be traced, or
to know how strongly their votaries have been influenced in the direction of their taste by the traditions of the Middle Ages. The binding of a book
was, of old, a shrine on which the finest workmanship in bullion and the costliest gems were lavished.
The psalter or the breviary of some early saint, a
portion of the Scriptures, or some other volume
held sacred, would be thus enshrined. It has happened sometimes that tattered fragments of them
have been preserved as effective relics within outer
shells or shrines; and in some instances, long after
the books themselves have disappeared, specimens
of these old bindings have remained to us beautiful
in their decay; - but we are getting far beyond
the Inchrule.
Your affluent omnivorous collector, who has more
of that kind of business on hand than he can perform for himself, naturally brings about him a train
of satellites, who make it their business to minister to his importunate cravings. With them the
phraseology of the initiated degenerates into a hard
business sort of slang. Whatever slight remnant of
respect towards literature as a vehicle of knowledge
may linger in the conversation of their employers,
has never belonged to theirs.  They are dealers
who have just two things to look to, - the price of
their wares, and the peculiar propensities of the unfortunates who employ them. Not that they are




28               HIS NATURE.
destitute of all sympathy with the malady which
they feed. The caterer generally gets infected in
a superficial cutaneous sort of way. He has often a
collection himself, which he eyes complacently of
an evening as he smokes his pipe over his brandyand-water, but to which he is not so distractedly
devoted but that a pecuniary consideration will
tempt him to dismember it. It generally consists,
indeed, of blunders or false speculations-books
which have been obtained in a mistaken reliance on
their suiting the craving of some wealthy collector.
Caterers unable to comprehend the subtle influences
at work in the mind of the book-hunter, often make
miscalculations in this way.  Fitzpatrick Smart
punished them so terribly that they at last abandoned him in despair to his own devices.
Several men of this class were under the authority of the Inchrule, and their communings were instructive.  "Thorpe's catalogue just arrived, sir,
- several highly important announcements," says
a portly person with a fat volume under his arm,
hustling forward with an air of assured consequence.  There is now to be a deep and solemn
consultation, as when two ambassadors are going
over a heavy protocol from a third. It happened
to me to see one of these myrmidons returning from
a bootless errand of inspection to a reputed collection; he was hot and indignant. "A collection,"
he sputtered forth -  "that a collection! - mere
rubbish, sir —irredeemable trash.  What do you
think, sir?- a set of the common quarto edition




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.            29
of the Delphini classics, copies of Newton's works
and Bacon's works, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and
so forth - nothing better, I declare to you: and to
call that a collection! "  Whereas, had it contained
The Pardoner and the FIrere, Sir Clyomon and
Clarnydes, A Knacke to knowe a Knave, Banke's
Bay Horse in a trance, or the works of those
eminent dramatists, Nabbes, May, Glapthorne, or
Chettle, then would the collection have been worthy of distinguished notice. On another occasion,
the conversation turning on a name of some repute,
the remark is ventured, that he is "said to know
something about books," which brings forth the fatal
answer -  H' He know about books! - Nothing -
nothing at all, I assure you; unless, perhaps, about
their insides."
The next slide of the lantern is to represent a
quite peculiar and abnormal case. It introduces a
strangely fragile, unsubstantial, and puerile figure,
wherein, however, resided one of the most potent and
original spirits that ever frequented a tenement of
clay. He shall be called, on account of associations
that may or may not be found out, Thomas Papaverius. But how to make palpable to the ordinary
human being one so signally divested of all the material and common characteristics of his race, yet
so nobly endowed with its rarer and loftier attributes, almost paralyzes the pen at the very beginning.
In what mood and shape shall he be brought
forward? Shall it be as first we met at the table




30               HIS NATURE.
of Lucullus, whereto he was seduced by the false
pretence that lie would there meet with one who
entertained novel and anarchical opinions regarding
the Golden Ass of Apuleius? No one speaks of
waiting dinner for him. He will come and depart
at his own sweet will, neither burdened with punctualities nor burdening others by exacting them.
The festivities of the afternoon are far on when a
commotion is heard in the hall as if some dog or
other stray animal had forced its way in. The instinct of a friendly guest tells him of the arrival;
he opens the door, and fetches in the little stranger.
What can it be? a street-boy of some sort? His
costume, in fact, is a boy's duffle great-coat, very
threadbare, with a hole in it, and buttoned tight to
the chin, where it meets the fragments of a particolored belcher handkerchief; on his feet are listshoes, covered with snow, for it is a stormy winter
night; and the trousers - some one suggests that
they are inner linen garments blackened with writing-ink, but that Papaverius never would have been
at the trouble so to disguise them. What can be
the theory of such a costume? The simplest thing
in the world - it consisted of the fragments of apparel nearest at hand. Had chance thrown to him
a court single-breasted coat, with a bishop's apron,
a kilt, and top-boots, in these he would have made
his entry.
The first impression that a boy has appeared vanishes instantly. Though in one of the sweetest and
most genial of his essays he shows how every man




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             31
retains so much in him of the child he originally
was - and he himself retained a great deal of that
primitive simplicity - it was buried within the
depths of his heart- not visible externally. On
the contrary, on one occasion when he corrected an
erroneous reference to an event as being a century
old, by saying that he recollected its occurrence,
one felt almost a surprise at the necessary limitation
in his age, so old did he appear with his arched
brow loaded with thought, and the countless little
wrinkles which ingrained his skin, gathering thickly round the curiously expressive and subtle lips.
These lips are speedily opened by some casual remark, and presently the flood of talk passes forth
from  them, free, clear, and continuous - never
rising into declamation - never losing a certain
mellow earnestness, and all consisting of sentences
as exquisitely jointed together, as if they were destined to challenge the criticism of the remotest
posterity.  Still the hours stride over each other,
and still flows on the stream of gentle rhetoric, as
if it were labitur et labetur in omne volubilis cevum.
It is now far in to the night, and slight hints and
suggestions are propagated about separation and
home-going. The topic starts new ideas on the
progress of civilization, the effect of habit on men
in all ages, and the power of the domestic affections.  Descending from  generals to the special,
he could testify to the inconvenience of late hours;
for, was it not the other night that, coming to what
was, or what he believed to be, his own door, he




32              HIS NATURE.
knocked, and knocked; but the old woman within
either couldn't or wouldn't hear him; so he scrambled over a wall, and having taken his repose in a
furrow, was able to testify to the extreme unpleasantness of such a couch. The predial groove might
indeed nourish kindly the infant seeds and shoots of
the peculiar vegetable to which it was appropriated,
but was not a comfortable place of repose for adult
man.
Shall I try another sketch of him, when, travelstained and foot-sore, he glided in on us one night
like a shadow, the child by the fire gazing on him
with round eyes of astonishment, and suggesting
that he should get a penny and go home - a proposal which he subjected to some philosophical criticism very far wide of its practical tenor. How far
he had wandered since he had last refreshed himself, or even whether he had eaten food that day,
were matters on which there was no getting articulate utterance from him. Though his costume was
muddy, however, and his communications about the
material wants of life very hazy, the ideas which he
had stored up during his wandering poured themselves forth as clear and sparkling, both in logic
and language, as the purest fountain that springs
from a Highland rock.
How that wearied, worn, little body was to be
refreshed was a difficult problem: soft food disagreed with him - the hard he could not eat.
Suggestions pointed at length to the solution of
that vegetable unguent to which he had given a




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             33
sort of lustre, and it might be supposed that there
were some fifty cases of acute toothache to be
treated in the house that night.  How  many
drops?  Drops! nonsense.  If the wineglasses of
the establishment were not beyond the ordinary
normal size, there was no risk - and so the weary
is at rest for a time.
At early morn a triumphant cry of Eureka! calls
me to his place of rest. With his unfailing instinct
he has got at the books, and lugged a considerable
heap of them around him. That one which specially claims his attention — my best bound quarto
- is spread upon a piece of bedroom furniture
readily at hand, and of sufficient height to let him
pore over it as he lies recumbent on the floor, with
only one article of attire to separate him from the
condition in which Archimedes, according to the
popular story, shouted the same triumphant cry.
He had discovered a very remarkable anachronism
in the commonly received histories of a very important period. As he expounded it, turning up his
unearthly face from the book with an almost painful expression of grave eagerness, it occurred to me
that I had seen something like the scene in Dutch
paintings of the Temptation of St. Anthony.
Suppose the scene changed to a pleasant country
house, where the enlivening talk has made a guest
forget
"The lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,"
that lie between him and his place of rest. He
3




34              HIS NATURE.
must be instructed in his course, but the instruction
reveals more difficulties than it removes, and there
is much doubt and discussion, which Papaverius at
once clears up as effectually as he had ever dispersed a cloud of logical sophisms; and this time
the feat is performed by a stroke of the thoroughly
practical, which looks like inspiration, - he will accompany the forlorn traveller, and lead him through
the difficulties of the way - for have not midnight
wanderings and musings made him familiar with
all its intricacies? Roofed by a huge wideawake,
which makes his tiny figure look like the stalk of
some great fungus, with a lantern of more than
common dimensions in his hand, away he goes
down the wooded path, up the steep bank, along
the brawling stream, and across the waterfall —
and ever as he goes there comes from him a continued stream of talk concerning the philosophy of
Immanuel Kant, and other kindred matters. Surely if we two were seen by any human eyes, it must
have been supposed that some gnome, or troll, or
kelpie was luring the listener to his doom. The
worst of such affairs as this was, the consciousness
that, when left, the old man would continue walking on until, weariness overcoming him, he would
take his rest, wherever that happened, like some
poor mendicant. He used to denounce, with his
most fervent eloquence, that barbarous and brutal
provision of the law of England which rendered
sleeping in the open air an act of vagrancy, and so
punishable, if the sleeper could not give a satisfac



MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             35
tory account of himself — a thing which Papaverius never could give under any circumstances.
After all, I fear this is an attempt to describe the
indescribable.  It was the commonest of sayings
when any of his friends were mentioning to each
other "his last," and creating mutual shrugs of
astonishment, that, were one to attempt to tell all
about him, no man would believe it, so separate
would the whole be from all the normal conditions
of human nature.
The difficulty becomes more inextricable in passing from specific little incidents to an estimation
of the general nature of the man. The logicians
lucidly describe definition as being per genus et dcifferentianm.  You have the characteristics in which
all of the genus partake as common ground, and
then you individualize your object by showing in
what it differs from the others of the genus. But
we are denied this standard for Papaverius, so entirely did he stand apart, divested of the ordinary
characteristics of social man ll- of those characteristics without which the human race as a body could
not get on or exist. For instance, those who knew
him a little might call him a loose man in money
matters; those who knew him closer laughed at the
idea of coupling any notion of pecuniary or other
like responsibility with his nature. You might as
well attack the character of the nightingale, which
may have nipped up your five-pound note and torn
it to shreds to serve as nest-building material.
Only immediate craving necessities could ever ex



36              HIS NATURE.
tract from him an acknowledgment of the common
vulgar agencies by which men subsist in civilized
society; and only while the necessity lasted did
the acknowledgment exist.  Take just one example, which will render this clearer than any generalities. He arrives very late at a friend's door,
and on gaining admission - a process in which he
often endured impediments - he represents, with
his usual silver voice and measured rhetoric, the
absolute necessity of his being then and there invested with a sum of money in the current coin of
the realm - the amount limited, from the nature
of his necessities, which he very freely states, to
seven shillings and sixpence. Discovering, or fancying he discovers, signs that his eloquence is likely
to be unproductive, he is fortunately reminded that,
should there be any difficulty in connection with
security for the repayment of the loan, he is at that
moment in possession of a document, which he is
prepared to deposit with the lender - a document
calculated, he cannot doubt, to remove any feeling
of anxiety which the most prudent person could
experience in the circumstances. After a rummage
in his pockets, which develops miscellaneous and
varied, but as yet by no means valuable possessions,
he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled bit of paper, and spreads it out - a fifty-pound
bank-note! The friend, who knew him well, was
of opinion that, had he, on delivering over the seven
shillings and sixpence, received the bank-note, he
never would have heard anything more of the




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             37
transaction from the other party. It was also his
opinion that, before coming to a personal friend,
the owner of the note had made several efforts to
raise money on it among persons who might take
a purely business view of such transactions; but
the lateness of the hour, and something in the appearance of the thing altogether, had induced these
mercenaries to forget their cunning, and decline the
transaction.
He stretched till it broke the proverb, Bis dat
qui cito dat. His giving was quick enough on the
rare occasions when he had wherewithal to give,
but then the act was final, and could not be repeated. If he suffered in his own person from this
peculiarity, he suffered still more in his sympathies,
for he was full of them to all breathing creatures,
and, like poor Goldy, it was agony to him to hear
the beggar's cry of distress, and to hear it without
the means of assuaging it, though in a departed
fifty pounds there were doubtless the elements for
appeasing many a street wail. All sums of money
were measured by him through the common standard of immediate use; and with more solemn pomp
of diction than he applied to the bank-note, might
he inform you that, with the gentleman opposite,
to whom he had hitherto been entirely a stranger,
but who happened to be nearest to him at the time
when the exigency occurred to him, he had just
succeeded in negotiating a loan of "twopence."
He was and is a great authority in political economy. I have known great anatomists and physiol



38              HIS NATURE.
ogists as careless of their health as he was of his
purse, whence I have inferred that something more
than a knowledge of the abstract truth of political
economy is necessary to keep some men from pecuniary imprudence, and that something more than a
knowledge of the received principles of physiology
is necessary to bring others into a course of perfect
sobriety and general obedience to the laws of health.
Further, Papaverius had an extraordinary insight
into practical human life; not merely in the abstract, but in the concrete; not merely as a philosopher of human nature, but as one who saw into
those who passed him in the walk of life with the
kind of intuition attributed to expert detectives -
a faculty that is known to have belonged to more
than one dreamer, and is one of the mysteries in
the nature of J. J. Rousseau; and, by the way, like
Rousseau's, his handwriting was clear, angular, and
unimpassioned, and not less uniform and legible
than printing - as if the medium of conveying
so noble a thing as thought ought to be carefully,
symmetrically, and decorously constructed, let all
other material things be as neglectfully and scornfully dealt with as may be.
This is a long proemium to the description of his
characteristics as a book-hunter- but these can be
briefly told. Not for him were the common enjoyments and excitements of the pursuit.  He cared
not to add volume unto volume, and heap up the
relics of the printing-press. All the external niceties about pet editions, peculiarities of binding or of




MIGHTY BOOI-HUNTERS.             39
printing, rarity itself, were to him as if they were
not.  His pursuit, indeed, was like that of the
savage who seeks but to appease the hunger of the
moment. If he catch a prey just sufficient for his
desires, it is well; yet he will not hesitate to bring
down the elk or the buffalo, and, satiating himself
with the choicer delicacies, abandon the bulk of
the carcass to the wolves or the vultures. So of
Papaverius. If his intellectual appetite were craving after some passage in the (EOdipus, or in the
Medeia, or in Plato's Republic, he would be quite
contented with the most tattered and valueless fragment of the volume if it contained what he wanted;
but, on the other hand, he would not hesitate to
seize upon your tall copy in russia gilt and tooled.
Nor would the exemption of an editio princeps from
everyday sordid work restrain his sacrilegious hands.
If it should contain the thing he desires to see, what
is to hinder him from wrenching out the twentieth
volume of your Encyclopedie MUetodigue or Ersch
und Gruber, leaving a vacancy like an extracted
front tooth, and carrying it off to his den of Cacus?
If you should mention the matter to any vulgarmannered acquaintance given to the unhallowed
practice of jeering, he would probably touch his
nose with his extended palm and say, "Don't you
wish you may get it? " True, the world at large
has gained a brilliant essay on Euripides or Plato.
- but what is that to the rightful owner of the lost
sheep?
The learned world may very fairly be divided




40                HIS NATURE.
into those who return the books borrowed by them,
and those who do not. Papaverius belonged decidedly to the latter order.  A friend addicted to the
marvellous boasts that, under the pressure of a call
by a public library to replace a mutilated book with
a new copy, which would have cost ~30, he recovered a volume from Papaverius, through the agency
of a person specially bribed and authorized to take
any necessary measures, insolence and violence exceptedl - but the power of extraction that must
have been employed in such a process excites very
painful reflections. Some legend, too, there is of a
book creditor having forced his way into the Cacus
den, and there seen a sort of rubble-work inner wall
of volumes, with their edges outwards, while others,
bound and unbound, the plebeian sheepskin and the
aristocratic russian, were squeezed into certain tubs
drawn from the washing establishment of a confiding landlady. In other instances the book has been
recognized at large, greatly enhanced in value by a
profuse edging of manuscript notes from a gifted pen
— a phenomenon calculated to bring into practical
use the speculations of the civilians about pictures
painted on other people's panels.1 What became
of all his waifs and strays, it might be well not to
inquire too curiously. If he ran short of legitimate
1 " Si quis in aliena tabula pinxerit, quidam putant, tabulam
picturma cedere: aliis videtur picturam (qualiscunque sit) tabula
cedere: sed nobis videtur melius esse tabulam picturie cedere.
Ridiculum est enim picturam Apellis vel Parrhasii in accessionem vilissimve tabula cedere." - Inst. ii. 1, 34.




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             41
tabula raza to write on, do you think he would hesitate to tear out the most convenient leaves of any
broad-margined book, whether belonging to himself or another?  Nay, it is said he once gave
in "copy" written on the edges of a tall octavo,
Somniurm Scipionis; and as he did not obliterate
the original matter, the printer was rather puzzled, and made a funny jumble between the letterpress Latin and the manuscript English. All these
things were the types of an intellectual vitality
which despised and thrust aside all that was gross
or material in that wherewith it came in contact.
Surely never did the austerities of monk or anchorite so entirely cast all these away as his peculiar
nature removed them from him. It may be questioned if he ever knew what it was'" to eat a good
dinner," or could even comprehend the nature of
such a felicity. Yet in all the sensuous nerves
which connect as it were the body with the ideal,
he was painfully susceptible. Hence a false quantity or a wrong note in music was agony to him;
and it is remembered with what ludicrous solemnity he apostrophized his unhappy fate as one over
whom a cloud of the darkest despair had just been
drawn — a peacock had come to live within hearing distance from him, and not only the terrific
yells of the accursed biped pierced him to the soul,
but the continued terror of their recurrence kept
his nerves in agonizing tension during the intervals
of silence.
Peace be with his gentle and kindly spirit, now




42               HIS NA TURE.
for some time separated from its grotesque and
humble tenement of clay.  It is both right and
pleasant to say that the characteristics here spoken
of were not those of his latter days. In these he
was tended by affectionate hands; and I have
always thought it a wonderful instance of the
power of domestic care and management that,
through the ministrations of a devoted offspring,
this strange being was so cared for, that those
who came in contact with him then, and then
only, might have admired him as the patriarchal
head of an agreeable and elegant household.
Let us now, for the sake of variety, summon up
a spirit of another order- Magnus Lucullus, Esq.
of Grand Priory. He is a man with a presence -
tall, and a little portly, with a handsome pleasant
countenance looking hospitality and kindliness towards friends, and a quiet but not easily solvable
reserve towards the rest of the world. He has no
literary pretensions, but you will not talk long with
him without finding that he is a scholar, and a ripe
and good one. He is complete and magnificent in
all his belongings, only, as no man's qualities and
characteristics are of perfectly uniform balance and
parallel action, his library is the sphere in which
his disposition for the complete and the magnificent
has most profusely developed itself.
As you enter its Gothic door a sort of indistinct
slightly musky perfume, like that said to frequent
Oriental bazaars, hovers around.  Everything is
of perfect finish -the mahogany-railed gallery -




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             43
the tiny ladders - the broad-winged lecterns, with
leathern cushions on the edges to keep the wood
from grazing the rich bindings - the books themselves, each shelf uniform with its facings or rather
backings, like well-dressed lines at a review. Their
owner does not profess to indulge much in quaint
monstrosities, though many a book of rarity is
there. In the first place, he must have the best
and most complete editions, whether common or
rare; and, in the second place, they must be in
perfect condition. All the classics are there - one
complete set of Valpy's in good russia, and many
separate copies of each, valuable for text or annotation. The copies of Bayle, Moreri, the Trevoux
Dictionary, Stephens's Lexicon, Du Cange, Mabilion's Antiquities, the Benedictine historians, the
Bolandists' Lives of the Saints, Groevius and Gronovius, and heavy books of that order, are in their
old original morocco, without a scratch or abrasure,
gilt-edged, vellum-jointed, with their backs blazing
in tooled gold. Your own dingy well-thumbed
Bayle or Moreri possibly cost you two or three
pounds, his cost forty or fifty. Further, in these
affluent shelves may be found those great costly
works which cross the border of "three figures,"
and of which only one or two of the public libraries can boast, such as the Celebri famiglie Italiane
of Litta, Denon's Egypt, the great French work
on the arts of the Middle Ages, and the like; and
many is the scholar who, unable to gratify his
cravings elsewhere, has owed it to Lucullus that




44              HIS NATUR2E.
he has seen something he was in search after in one
of these great books, and has been able to put it to
public use.
Throughout the establishment there is an appearance of care and order, but not of restraint.
Some inordinately richly-bound volumes have special grooves or niches for themselves lined with
soft cloth, as if they had delicate lungs, and must
be kept from catching cold. But even these are
not guarded from the hand of the guest. Lucullus
says his books are at the service of his friends; and,
as a hint in the same direction, he recommends to
your notice a few volumes from the collection of the
celebrated Grollier, the most princely and liberal
of collectors, on whose classic book-plate you find
the genial motto, "Joannis Grollierii et amicorumn."
Having conferred on you the freedom of his library,
he will not concern himself by observing how you
use it, He would as soon watch you after dinner
to note whether you eschew common sherry and
show an expensive partiality for that madeira at
twelve pounds a dozen, which other men would
probably only place on the table when it could be
well invested in company worthy of the sacrifice.
Who shall penetrate the human heart, and say
whether a hidden pang or gust of wrath has
vibrated behind that placid countenance, if you
have been seen to drop an ink-spot on the creamy
margin of the Mentelin Virgil, or to tumble that
heavy Aquinas from the ladder and dislocate his
joints? As all the world now knows, however,




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.             45
men assimilate to the conditions by which they
are surrounded, and we civilize our city savages by
substituting cleanness and purity for the putrescence
which naturally accumulates in great cities. So, in
a noble library, the visitor is enchained to reverence
and courtesy by the genius of the place. You cannot toss about its treasures as you would your own
rough calfs and obdurate hogskins; as soon would
you be tempted to pull out your meerschaum and
punk-box in a cathedral. It is hard to say, but I
would fain believe that even Papaverius himself
might have felt some sympathetic touch from the
spotless perfection around him and the noble reliance of the owner; and that he might perhaps
have restrained himself from tearing out the most
petted rarities, as a wolf would tear a fat lamb from
the fold.
Such, then, are some " cases " discussed in a sort
of clinical lecture. It will be seen that they have
differing symptoms - some mild and genial, others
ferocious and dangerous. Before passing to another
and the last case, I propose to say a word or two
ori some of the minor specialties which characterize
the pursuit in its less amiable or dignified form.
It is, for instance, liable to be accompanied by an
affection, known also to the agricultural world as
affecting the wheat crop, and called "the smut."
Fortunately this is less prevalent among us than
the French, who have a name for the class of
books affected by this school of collectors in the
Bibliothegque bleue. There is a sad story connected




46               UIS NATURE.
with this peculiar frailty. A great and high-minded
scholar of the seventeenth century had a savage
trick played on him by some mad wags, who collected a quantity of the brutalities of which Latin
literature affords an endless supply, and published
them in his name.  He is said not long to have
survived this practical joke; and one does not
wonder at his sinking before such a prospect, if
he anticipated an age and a race of book-buyers
among whom his great critical works are forgotten,
and his name is known solely for the spurious volume, sacred to infamy, which may be found side by
side with the works of the author of Trimalcion's
Feast - " par nobile fratrum."
There is another failing, without a leaning to
virtue's side, to which some collectors have been,
by reputation at least, addicted - a propensity to
obtain articles without value given for them - a
tendency to be larcenish.  It is the culmination,
indeed, of a sort of lax morality apt to grow out of
the habits and traditions of the class. Your true
collector - not the man who follows the occupation
as a mere expensive taste, and does not cater for
himself — considers himself a finder or discoverer
rather than a purchaser.  He is an industrious
prowler in unlikely regions, and is entitled to some
reward for his diligence and his skill. Moreover,
it is the essence of that very skill to find value in
those things which, in the eye of the ordinary possessor, are really worthless. From estimating them
at little value, and paying little for them, the steps




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.                   47
are rather too short to estimating them at nothing,
and paying nothing for them. What matters it,
a few dirty black-letter leaves picked out of that
volume of miscellaneous trash - leaves which the
owner never knew  he  had, and  cannot miss —
which he would not know the value of, had you
told him of them? What use of putting notions
into the greedy barbarian's head, as if one were to
find treasures for him? And the little pasquinade
is so curious, and will fill a gap in that fine collection so nicely! The notions of the collector about
such spoil are indeed the converse of those which
Cassio professed to hold about his good name, for
the scrap furtively removed is supposed in no way
to impoverish the loser, while it makes the recipient
rich indeed.'
Those habits of the prowler which may gradually
lead a mind not strengthened by strong principle
into this downward career, are hit with his usual
vivacity and wonderful truth by Scott. The speaker is our delightful friend Oldenbuck of Monkbarns,
1 [It is not Cassio but Iago who says that good name in man
and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls, the loss of
which enriches not others, but makes them poor indeed. The
error is worth correcting; for there is no more exquisite touch
of art, no finer exhibition of subtle and profound knowledge of
man than the teaching by the lips of this supremest scoundrel
the wide difference between the intellectual perception of a
moral sentiment and its actual possession. Joseph Surface is
the fruit of a bold and clumsy imitation of this single trait of
Iago's character. Iago is a human creature, and is therefore a
complex machine. Joseph Surface is an attribute of humanity
made to wear clothes and do the work of a puppet. - W.]




48              HIS NATURE.
the Antiquary, and it has just enough of confession
in it to show a consciousness that the narrator has
gone over dangerous ground, and, if we did not see
that the narrative is tinged with some exaggeration,
has trodden a little beyond the limits of what is
gentlemanly and just.
"See this bundle of ballads, not one of them
later than 1700, and some of them a hundred years
older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who
loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco,
sir, snuff, and the Complete Syren, were the equivalent! For that mutilated copy of the Complaynt of
Scotland I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles
of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who
in gratitude bequeathed it to me by his last will.
These little Elzevirs are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning through
the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St. Mary's
Wynd --  wherever, in fine, there were to be found
brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in
things rare and curious. How often have I stood
haggling on a halfpenny, lest by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price he should be led
to suspect the value I set upon the article! How
have I trembled lest some passing stranger should
chop in between me and the prize, and regarded
each poor student of divinity that stopped to turn
over the books at the stall as a rival amateur or
prowling bookseller in disguise! And then, Mr.
Lovel —the sly satisfaction with which one pays
the consideration, and pockets the article, affecting




MIGHTY BOOIK-HUNTERS.              49
a cold indifference while the hand is trembling with
pleasure! Then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier
and emulous rivals by showing them such a treasure as this (displaying a little black smoked book
about the size of a primer)- to enjoy their surprise
and envy; shrouding, meanwhile, under a veil of
mysterious consciousness, our own superior knowledge and dexterity; — these, my young friend -
these are the white moments of life, that repay the
toil and painsand sedulous attention which our profession, above all others, so peculiarly demands."
There is a nice subtle meaning in the worthy
man calling his weakness his " profession," but it
is in complete keeping with the mellow  Tenierslike tone of the whole picture.  Ere we have done
we shall endeavor to show that the grubber among
book-stalls has, with other grubs or grubbers, his
useful place in the general dispensation of the
world. But his is a pursuit exposing him to moral
perils, which call for peculiar efforts of self-restraint
to save him from them; and the moral Scott holds
forth —for a sound moral he always has- is, If
you go as far as Jonathan Oldenbuck did - and I
don't advise you to go so far, but hint that you
should stop earlier - say to yourself, Thus far, and
no farther.
So much for a sort of clinical exposition of the
larcenous propensities which accompany book-hunting.1 There is another peculiar, and, it may be
1 [Nothing could be more correct or in better tone than the
author's remarks upon these larcenous propensities, the exist4




50                   fHIS NATURE.
said, vicious propensity, exhibited occasionally in
conjunction with the pursuit. It is entirely antagonistic in spirit to the tenth commandment, and
consists in a desperate coveting of the neighbor's
goods, and a satisfaction, not so much in possessing
for one's self, as in dispossessing him.  This spirit
is said to burn with still fiercer flame in the breasts
of those whose pursuit would externally seem to be
the most innocent in the world, and the least excitive of the bad passions- namnely, among flowerfInciers.  From  some mysterious cause, it has been
ence of which he recognizes in such a candid matter-of-course
way. There is, too, a genuine air about what he says which is
unmistakable. But we on this side of the water, while confessing to our full share of human frailty, cannot but be unpleasantly surprised at the frequent imputations upon the personal
honor, in this respect, of men of letters in Great Britain, which
we see publicly made by members of the fraternity, and plainly
without fear of contradiction. Dreadful stories of the purloining of rare manuscripts and books, and that not by needy thieves
who steal to sell or pawn, (for books of course are little more
than other goods exempt from ordinary theft,) but by men of
position in literature, who abuse the trust placed in them to
despoil even private collections only for the sake of satisfying their greed of what is scarce and curious. There are several men whose reputations extend beyond the limits of the
British empire who are resting under these accusations. These
stories are almost incredible to us. Mayhap our men of letters
have not yet attained a sufficient appreciation of the value of
old books to be subjected to the temptations which assail their
brethren of the mother-country.  But we shall, nevertheless,
mourn the day when an advance in learning shows itself in
such a way as to invite restraint of that perfect freedom with
which the owner or keeper of a library in this country now
admits to his shelves any man of letters, although a perfect
stranger, who is known to him even by reputation. - W.]




i1 GHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.                   51
known to develop itself most flagrantly among
tulip-collectors, insomuch that there are legends of
Dutch devotees of this pursuit who have paid their
thousands of dollars for a duplicate tuber, that they
might have the satisfaction of crushing it under
the heel.1 This line of practice is not entirely alien
to the book-hunter.  Dibdin warmed his convivial
guests at a comfortable fire, fed by the woodcuts
which had been printed from  in the impression of
the Bibliographical Decameron.   It was a quaint
fancy, and deemed to be a pretty and appropriate
form of hospitality, while it effectually assured the
subscribers to his costly volumes that the vulgar
world who buy cheap books was definitely cut off
from participating in their privileges.
Let us, however, summon a more potent spirit of
this order. He is a different being altogether from
those gentle shades who have flitted past us already.
I " The great point of view in a collector is to possess that not
possessed by any other. It is said of a collector lately deceased,
that he used to purchase scarce prints at enormous prices, in
order to destroy them, and thereby render the remaining impressions more scarce and valuable."- GROSE'S Olio, p. 57. I
do not know to whom Grose alludes; but it strikes me, in realizing a man given to such propensities -taking them as a reality
and not a joke -that it would be interesting to know how, in
his moments of serious thought, he could contemplate his favorite pursuit -as, for instance, when the conscientious physician
may have thought it necessary to warn him in time of the approaching end —how he could reckon up his good use of the
talents bestowed on him, counting among them his opportunities
for the encouragement of art, or an elevator and improver of
the human race.




52               HIS NATURE.
He was known in the body by many hard names,
such as the Vampire, the Dragon, &c. Ite was an
Irish absentee, or, more accurately, a refugee, since
he had made himself so odious on his ample estate
that he could not live there. How on earth he
should have set about collecting books, is one of the
inscrutable mysteries which ever surround the diagnosis of this peculiar malady.  Setting aside his
using his books by reading them as out of the question, he yet was never known to indulge in that
fondling and complacent examination of their exterior and general condition, which, to Inchrule and
others of his class, seemed to afford the highest
gratification that, as sojourners through this vale of
tears, it was their lot to enjoy. Nor did he luxuriate in the collective pride -like that of David
when he numbered his people - of beholding how
his volumes increased in multitude, and ranged
with one another, like well-sized and properlydressed troops, along an ample area of book-shelves.
His collection - if it deserved the name — was
piled in great heaps in garrets, cellars, and warerooms, like unsorted goods.  They were accumrulated, in fact, not so much that the owner might
have them, as that other people might not. If
there were a division of the order into positive, or
those who desire to make collections — and negative, or those who desire to prevent them being
made, his case would properly belong to the latter.
Imagine the consternation created in a small circle
of collectors by a sudden alighting among them of




MIGLHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.            53
a heluo librorum with such propensities, armed with
illimitable means, enabling him to desolate the land
like some fiery dragon! What became of the chaotic mass of literature he had brought together no
one knew. It was supposed to be congenial to his
nature to have made a great bonfire of it before he
left the world; but a little consideration showed
such a feat to be impossible: for books may be
burnt in detail by extraneous assistance, but it is
a curious fact that, combustible as paper is supposed
to be, books won't burn. If you doubt this, pitch
that folio Swammerdam or Puffendorf into a good
rousing fire, and mark the result.
No —it is probable that, stored away in some
forgotten repositories, these miscellaneous relics still
remain; and should they be brought forth, some
excitement might be created; for, ignorant as the
monster was, he had an instinct for knowing what
other people wanted, and was thus enabled to
snatch rare and curious volumes from the grasp of
systematic collectors. It was his great glory to get
hold of a unique book and shut it up.  There were
known to be just two copies of a spare quarto,
called Rout upon LRout, or the Rabblers Rabbled,
by Felix Nixon, Gent.  He possessed one copy;
the other, by indomitable perseverance, he also got
hold of, and then his heart was glad within him;
and he felt it glow with well-merited pride when
an accomplished scholar, desiring to complete an
epoch in literary history on which that book threw
some light, besought the owner to allow him a sight




54                   HIS NATURE.
of it, were it but for a few minutes, and the request
was refused.  " I might as well ask him," said the
animal, who was rather proud of his firmness than
ashamed of his churlishness, " to make me a present
of his brains and reputation." 1
It was among his pleasant ways to attend booksales, there to  watch  the biddings of persons on
whose judgment he relied, and cut in as the contest was becoming critical. This practice soon betrayed to those he had so provoked the chinks in
the monster's armor. He was assailable and punishable at last, then, this potent monster; but the
attack must be made warily and cautiously.  Accordingly, impartial bystanders, ignorant of the
plot, began to observe that he was degenerating by
I [Having the note on page 49 in mind, and with eyes quite
open to the risk of a charge of pharisaic gratitude, I here remark upon another restriction upon the use of books to which
our British kinsmen are subjected, and from which we are free.
No one can have read much in London reprints of scarce books
or new editions of old authors, without noticing evidence of the frequent inaccessibility to editorial seekers of well-known rare or
unique copies, which were absolutely necessary to the satisfactory performance of their labors. The students of this department of literature have again and again seen editorial short-comings excused, in a preface, by the statement that the possessor
of a certain unique copy of an old edition could not be persuaded
to allow the editor to make a transcript from it, or even to consult
it. Nor is this aspect of affairs (so unpleasant to us) much modified by the profuse and particular thanks of editors in the many
cases in which an opposite course was pursued. These, hardly
less than the apologies, are signs of an exclusiveness for mere
exclusion's sake, which surely show that where they are expected the generous influence of letters is counteracted and circumscribed by some power which here is quite unknown. In




MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS.                    55
degrees in the rank of his purchases, and at last
becoming, utterly reckless, buying, at the prices of
the sublimest rarities, common works of ordinary
literature to be found in every book-shop. Such
was the result of judiciously drawing him on, by
biddings for valueless books, on the part of those
whom he had outbid in the objects of their desire.
Auctioneers were surprised at the gradual change
coming over the book-market; and a few fortunate
people obtained considerable prices for articles they
were told to expect nothing for. But this farce, of
course, did not last long; and whether or not he
found  out that he  had been  beaten  at his own
weapons, the devouring monster disappeared as
mysteriously as he had come.
all my intercourse with lovers of books, whether they were professionally men of letters or not, I have heard but of a single instance in which the possessor of a collection, or a copy, however
rare and costly, did not give any properly introduced student the
right of free warren over his shelves. I have known men who
never had seen each other, or held any previous communication,
write for the loan of a volume of which there was but a single
copy in the country, and not half a dozen in the world; and I
never knew the request refused, although the book had often to
be sent more than a hundred miles by express, and sometimes
to be kept for three months and more. Nor did I ever know of
an instance in which there was cause given to regret this courtesy;- for which, by the way, there is not much bowing and
hat-doffing in type, for very shame's sake; it being taken for
granted that any man who has enough of the humanities to obtain and to prize a good book is entirely willing that all the
world, and particularly the men of his fellowship, should share
his good fortune. -W.]




56               HlIS NA TURE.
lReminiirenc~,
UCH incidents bring vividly before the
t   eye the scenes in which they took place
Xi;      long long ago. If any one in his early'/   youth has experienced some slight symptoms of the malady under discussion, which his
constitution, through a tough struggle with the
world, and a busy training in after life, has been
enabled to throw off, he will yet look back with
fond associations to the scenes of his dangerous indulgence. The auction-room is often the centre of
fatal attraction towards it, just as the billiard-room
and the rouge-et-noir table are to excesses of another
kind. There is that august tribunal, over which at
one time reigned Scott's genial friend Ballantyne,
succeeded by the sententious Tait, himself a man of
taste and a collector, and now presided over by the
great Nisbet. I bow with deferential awe to the
august tribunal before which so vast a mass of literature has changed hands, and where the future
destinies of so many thousands —or, shall it be
rather said, millions -of volumes have been decided,
each carrying with it its own little train of suspense
and triumph.
More congenial, however, in my recollection, is
that remote and dingy hall where rough Carfrae,
like Thor, flourished his thundering hammer. There
it was that one first marked, with a sort of sympa



REMINISCENCES.                    57
thetic awe, the strange and varied influence of their
peculiar maladies on the book-hunters of the last
generation. There it was that one first handled
those pretty little pets, the Elzevir classics, a sort of
literary bantams, which are still dear to memory,
and awaken old associations by their dwarfish ribbed
backs like those of ponderous folios, and their exquisite, but now, alas! too minute type.  The eyesight that could formerly peruse them with ease has
suffered decay, but they remain unchanged; and in
this they are unlike to many other objects of early
interest.  Children, flowers, animals, scenery even,
all have undergone mutation, but no perceptible
shade of change has passed over these little reminders of old times.1
There it was that one first could comprehend how
a tattered dirty fragment of a book once common
might be worth a deal more than its weight in gold.
There it was too, that, seduced by bad example, the
present respected pastor of Ardsnischen purchased
that beautiful Greek New Testament, by Jansen of
Amsterdam, which he loved so, in the freshness of
its acquisition, that he took it with him to church,
1 [This is but partly true. The inexperienced collector of
books, and especially of the ancient classics, should not be
tempted into paying high prices for Elzevir editions, unless in
a case where there is something particularly attractive to his
taste in the individual copy, and he pays for his whim — for
which, alas! we are all too ready. The Elzevirs have fallen
much in estimation and value of late years.  Their accuracy has been found to have been too much vaunted; and the
page is a bad one for the eye; not on account of its smallness, or
poor press-work, but because of the shape of the letter. - W.]




58               HIS NA TURE.
and, turning up the text, handed it to a venerable
woman beside him, after the fashion of an absorbed
and absent student who was apt to forget whether
he was reading Greek or English.  The presiding
genius of the place, with his strange accent, odd
sayings, and angular motions, accompanied by goodnatured grunts of grotesque wrath, became a sort of
household figure.  The dorsal breadth of pronunciation with which he would expose " Mr. Ivory's
Erskine," used to produce a titter which he was
always at a loss to understand.  Though not the
fashionable mart where all the thorough libraries
in perfect condition went to be hammered offthough it was rather a place where miscellaneous
collections were sold, and therefore bargains might
be expected by those who knew what they were
about - yet sometimes extraordinary and valuable
collections of rare books came under his hammer,
and created an access of more than ordinary excitement among the denizens of the place. On one of
these occasions a succession of valuable fragments
of early English poetry brought prices, so high and
far beyond those of ordinary expensive books in the
finest condition, that it seemed as if their imperfections were their merit; and the auctioneer, mromentarilv carried off with this feeling, when the
high prices began to sink a little, remonstrated thus,
"Going so low as thirty shillings, gentlemen,this curious book - so low as thirty shillings - and
quite imperfect!" 1
1 [Let not this occasion pass without brief tribute to that wit




REMINISCENCES.                      59
Those who frequented this howf, being generally
elderly men, have now nearly all departed. The
among literary auctioneers, that ever-welcomed companion among
men of letters, Mr. John Keese; - alas that his bright eye is forever closed, his trenchant tongue forever silent! It cannot be
but that many of the Book-Hunters who will read this most
interesting history of their species have at some time or other
pursued the objects of their chase with him as master of the
hunt; and they, who have forgiven him even the high prices
which he sometimes beguiled them into paying, will cherish
the memory of the man who diffused over the dull and selfish
contests of the auction-room, the charms of innocent, intellectual gayety. The joke into which the Scotch auctioneer blundered was one of a kind that he would have struck out upon
the spur of the occasion. Little that he said has been preserved;
and little perhaps would bear preserving. For, from the necessity of the case, the greater number of his jests, being born of
the circumstances of the moment, died with them; and their
short-lived prosperity lay in the ears which heard them. His
knowledge of literature, too, was chiefly that which a man of
quick apprehension acquires by constant intercourse with men
of letters. But his ready and apt use of it made his companionship an uncloying pleasure. The quickness of his repartee
was perhaps its greatest merit. A wit like him is a loaded piece,
which surely gives a flash and a report, no matter how dull a
finger pulls the trigger. One evening a little volume of wretched
religious poetry, by Miss -, was put up. Before a bid,
"Who was Miss -            -? " asked a book-stall keeper. Reese
glanced at the biographical sketch: —"A poor and pious girl
-who wrote poor and pious poetry."  The book dropped dead;
but the laugh which accompanied its fall raised the spirits of the
"company " and told on the subsequent bidding. He was courageous, too, as well as ready. At a sale of unusual interest, attention was attracted by the presence and the purchases of a
notorious political bully, then in office, and since rewarded with
a better place. The creature was as innocent of humane letters
as of humanity of any other kind, and bought for some political
satrap of higher culture, in whose service he was retained. He
claimed a very curious and valuable book which had been




60                   HIS NATURE.
thunderer's hammer, too, has long been silenced by
the great quieter. One living memorial still exists
of that scene - the genial and then youthful assistant, whose partiality for letters and literary pursuits
made him often the monitor and kindly guide of the
raw student, and who now, in a higher field, exercises a more important influence on the destinies of
literature. I passed the spot the other day —it was
not desolate and forsaken, with the moss growing
on the hearth-stone; on the contrary, it flared with
many lights -a thronged gin-palace.  When one
heard the sounds that issued from  the old familiar
spot, the reflection not unnaturally occurred that,
after all, there are worse pursuits in the world than
book-hunting.
knocked down to the bid of another person. This was explained to him in vain, and he began at once to be abusive. It
was then offered to put up the book again.  But he refused
consent to this arrangement, and began to threaten, exclaiming
that he "asked justice, and meant to have it." " Sir," instantly
replied Keese, in a distinct, low voice, as he fixed his steel gray
eye upon the bully, who could have torn his slight little form to
pieces, "I know no man who deserves justice more than you
do, and I heartily wish that you may get it." The animal's hide
was not proof against that dart. He turned livid with impotent
rage, and slunk silently away. Keese's memory will last his generation; and, as dead men are remembered, that is much. His
was the kindest of hearts, the readiest with sympathy and with
cheer, and with aid to the very extent of his ability. He helped
many a young author into print, for whose unsalable books
when the heavy "remainders" came under his hammer, even
his humor could not extract the worth of the paper on which
they were printed. If he had failings, which of us is free from
them? and how many of us can reckon among ours one so
kindly as this, though, perhaps, publishers may think so culpable? - W. ]




CLASSIF CA TI O.             61
~[asifiratia n., R1{APS it would be a good practical
o distribution of the class of persons under examination, to divide them  into
-'.'.. private prowlers and auction-hunters.
There are many other modes of classifying them,
but none so general.  They might be classified by
the different sizes of books they affect — as folios,
quartos, octavos, and duodecimos- but this would
be neither an expressive nor a dignified classification. In enumerating the various orders to which
Fitzpatrick Smart did not belong, I have mentioned
many of the species, but a great many more might
be added. Some collectors lay themselves out for
vellumr-printed volumes almost solely.  There are
such not only among very old books, but among very
new; for of a certain class of modern books it frequently happens that a copy or two may be printed
on vellum, to catch the class whose weakness takes
that direction.
It may be cited as a signal instance of the freaks
of book-collecting, that of all men in the world
Junot, the hard-fighting soldier, had a vellum library; but so it was.  It was sold in i'London for
about ~1400. "The crown octavos," says Dibdin,
"especially of ancient classics, and a few favorite
English authors, brought from four to six guineas.
The first virtually solid article of any importance,




62               HIS NATURE.
or rather of the greatest importance, in the whole
collection, was the matchless Didot Horace, of 1799,
folio, containing the original drawings from which
the exquisite copperplate vignettes were executed.
This was purchased by the gallant Mr. George Hibbert for ~140. Nor was it in any respect an extravagant or even dear purchase." It now worthily
adorns the library of Norton 1Hall.
Some collectors may be styled Rubricists, being
influenced by a sacred rage for books having the
contents and marginal references printed in red ink.
Some "' go at " flowered capitals, others at broad
margins.  These have all a certain amount of magnificence in their tastes; but there are others again
whose priceless collections are like the stock-intrade of a wholesale ballad-singer, consisting of
chap-books, as they are termed - the articles dealt
in by pedlers and semi-mendicants for the past century or two. Some affect collections relating to the
drama, and lay great store by heaps of play-bills
arranged in volumes, and bound, perhaps, in costly
russia. Of a more dignified grade are perhaps
those who have lent themselves to the collection of
the theses on which aspirants after university honors held their disputations or impugnments.  Sometimes out of a great mass of rubbish of this kind
the youthful production of some man who has afterwards become great turns up.  Of these theses and
similar tracts a German, Count Dietrich, collected
some hundred and forty thousand, which are now
in this country.




CLASSIFIl CA TION.                 63
Collectors there have been, not unimportant for
number and zeal, whose mission it is to purchase
books marked by peculiar mistakes or errors of the
press. The celebrated Elzevir Ccesar of 1635 is
known by this, that the number of the 149th page
is misprinted 153. All that want this peculiar distinction are counterfeits.  The little volume being,
as Brunet says, "une des plus jolies et plus rares
de la collection des Elzevier," gave a temptation to
fraudulent imitators, who, as if by a providential
arrangement. for their detection, lapsed into accuracy at the critical figure.1
1 [There are not a few happy mistakes of this kind which
serve for the protection of the book collector, who will find
almost all of them carefully recorded in Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, without consulting which no inexperienced buyer should
ever make an important purchase. It is, however, much less
fill in this respect, as well as in others, with regard to books
printed in our own language than with regard to those, both
ancient and modern, in the languages of the continent of Europe.
It is to be regretted that Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual is
very deficient upon this point, a consideration of which did not enter into the plans of either Watts or Brydges. Apropos, the lovers
of beautiful books more suited to the general taste than Elzevir
classics, will be glad to know of an error which affords assistance
in the selection of a copy of that much prized, and most beautiful volume, Rogers' Italy with Turner's, Prout's, and Stothard's
illustrations. The proof copies of this book maintain their
high price, and will probably increase rather than diminish in
value. They can never be mistaken, because in the corner of
each impression, after the engraver's signature, is the word
"proof." But there are a few copies, not thus marked, which
rank next to them, and which are, to all intents and purposes,
as good as proofs, they being the first which were struck off
after the proof-mark was erased.  These are known by the
misplacing of the two illustrations to the lines upon Arqua.




64                  7HiS NATURE.
The mere printers' blunders that have been committed upon editions of the Bible are reverenced in
literary history; and one edition -  the Vulgate issued under the authority of Sixtus V. -  achieved
immense value from  its multitude of errors.  The
well-known story of the German printer's wife who
surreptitiously altered the passage importing that
her ihusband should be her lord  (Herr) so as to
make him  be her fool (Narr), needs confirmation.
If such a misprint were found, it might quite naturally be attributed to carelessness. Valarian Flavigny, who had  many controversies on  his hand,
brought on  the  most terrible  of them   all with
Abraham  Ecchellensis for a mere dropped letter.
In the rebuke about the mote in thy brother's eye,
The view of the tomb should be at the beginning, and that of
Petrarch's house at the end of the lines; but in these copies the
positions are reversed.  After a few copies were printed the
error was discovered and corrected; and the consequence is
that the copies in which the tomb appears on page 88, and the
house on page 91, have a special value, hitherto not generally
known.
The obscurity of a learned language veils the most formidable error of the press that probably ever occurred, except one
in the London "Morning Chronicle " on the morning after the
birth of the Princess of Wales at Buckingham Palace, the vernacular enormity of which makes it absolutely unmentionable.
The former fell to the lot of Erasmus in his book Vidua C/hristiana, which he dedicated to Charles the Fifth's sister, the Queen
of Hungary.  In this volume, and of that illustrious princess
herself, he wrote Menite ilOl usam earn semper fuiisse que' talen.feminamn deceret; but the printer, as if seized upon by the spirit of
Aretino, made him say, Mentula usam earnm, &c., which stupendous announcement went through the whole of a large edition. -- W.]




CLASSIFICATION.                    65
and the beam in thine own, the first letter in the
Latin for eye was carelessly dropped out, and left
a word which may be found occasionally in Martial's Epigrams, but not in books of purer Latin and
purer ideas.1
Questions as to typographical blunders in editions
of the classics are mixed up with larger critical inquiries into the purity of the ascertained text, and
1 A traditional anecdote represents the Rev. William Thomson, a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, as having got
into a scrape by a very indecorous alteration of a word in
Scripture. A young divine, on his first public appearance, had
to read the solemn passage in 1st Corinthians, " Behold, I show
you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump." Thomson scratched the letter c out of the word changed.
The effect of the passage so mutilated can easily be tested. The
person who could play such tricks was ill suited for his profession; and, being relieved of its restraints, he found a more
congenial sphere of life among the unsettled crew of men of
letters in London, over whom Smollett had just ceased to
reign. He did a deal of hard work, and the world owes him
at least one good turn in his translation of Cunningham's Latin
History of Britain, from the Revolution to the Hanover Succession.
The value of this work, in the minute light thrown by it on
one of the most memorable periods of British history, is too
little known. The following extract may give some notion of
the curious and instructive nature of this neglected book; It
describes the influences which were in favor of the French alliance, and against the Whigs, during Marlborough's campaign.
" And now I shall take this opportunity to speak of the French
wine-drinkers as truly and briefly as I can. On the first breaking out of the Confederate war, the merchants in England were
prohibited from all commerce with France, and a heavy duty
was laid upon French wine. This caused a grievous complaint
among the topers, who have great interest in the Parliament, as
if they had been poisoned by port wines. Mr. Portman Sey



b6b6                HIS NATURE.
thus run in veins through the mighty strata of
philological and critical controversy which, from the
days of Poggio downwards, have continued to form
that voluminous mass of learning which the outer
world contemplates with silent awe.
To some extent the same spirit of critical inquiry
has penetrated into our own language.  What we
have of it clusters almost exclusively around the
mighty name of Shakspeare.   Shakspearian criticism is a branch of knowledge by itself. To record
its triumphs -from that greatest one by which the
senseless " Table of Greenfield," which interrupted
the touching close of Falstaff's days, was replaced
mour, who was a jovial companion, and indulged his appetites,
but otherwise a good man; General Churchill, the Duke of
Marlborough's brother, a man of courage, but a lover of wine;
Mr. Pereira, a Jew and smell-feast, and other hard drinkers,
declared, that the want of French wine was not to be endured,
and that they could hardly bear up under so great a calamity.
These were joined by Dr. Aldridge, who, though nicknamed
the priest of Bacchus, was otherwise an excellent man, and
adorned with all kinds of learning. Dr. Ratcliffe, a physician of
great reputation, who ascribed the cause of all diseases to the
want of French wines, though he was very rich, and much
addicted to wine, yet, being extremely covetous, bought the
cheaper wines; but at the same time he imputed the badness
of his wine to the war, and the difficulty of getting better.
Therefore the Duke of Beaufort and the Earl of Scarsdale,
two young noblemen of great interest among their acquaintance,
who had it in their power to live at their ease in magnificence
or luxury, merrily attributed all the doctor's complaints to his
avarice. All those were also for peace rather than war. And
all the bottle companions, many physicians, and great numbers
of the lawyers and inferior clergy, and, in fine, the loose women
too, were united together in the faction against the Duke of
Marlborough." - ii. 200.




CLASSIFICATION.                        67
by "'a babbled of green  fields "-  would  make a
large book of itself.   He who would  undertake it,
in a perfectly candid and impartial spirit, would
give us, varied no doubt with much erudition and
acuteness, a curious record of blundering ignorance
and presumptuous conceit, the one so intermingling
with the other that it would be often difficult to distinguish them.1
The quantity of typographical errors exposed in
those pages where they are least to be expected,
and are least excusable, opens up some curious considerations.   Compositors  are a placid  and  unimpressionable race, who do their work dutifully, with1 Without venturing too near to this very turbulent arena,
where hard words have lately been cast about with much reckless
ferocity, I shall just offer one amended reading, because there
is something in it quite peculiar, and characteristic of its literary birthplace beyond the Atlantic. The passage operated upon
is the wild soliloquy, where Hamlet resolves to try the test of
the play, and says, -
" The devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me."
The amended reading stands —
"As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me too - damme." *
[* I may be very dull, or very ignorant of this side of the Atlantic; but I
am quite unable to see in this emendation, (which must be classed rather with
the " ingenious " than the erudite,) anything peculiarly characteristic of its
literary birth-place. It is humorous indeed, and humor is perhaps more of
an every-day matter here than in the mother-country; but the humor is of
the kind peculiarly English, and the oath which is made its vehicle has been
the distinctive oath of our race since Joan d'Arc called us "English God



68                        HIS NATURE.
out yielding to the intellectual influences represented by it. A clause of an Act of Parliament,
with all its whereases, and be it enacteds, and hereby repealeds, creates quite as much emotion in them
as the most brilliant burst of the fashionable poet
of the day. They will set you up a psalm or a
blasphemous ditty with the same equanimity, not
retaining in their minds any clear distinction between them. Your writing must be something very
wonderful  indeed, before  they  distinguish  it from
other "copy," except by the goodness or badness of
the hand. A State paper which all the world is
mad to know about, is quite safe in a printing-office;
and they will set up what is here set down of them,
damns " four hundred years ago; and doubtless William the Norman found
this hearty curse with many other hearty and better things amuong the English
whom his race conquered, and by whom it was swallowed up. In respect of
our swearing, at least, we vindicate our birthright; except at the South, indeed, where new and elaborate monstrosities of profanity have been ingeniously
struck out.
But here is an emendation which should commend itself to the attention of
the British critics.  The passage is in "Anthony and Cleopatra," Act III.
Sc. 11.
"' Ah, dear! if I be so,
From my cold heart let heaven engender hail
And poison it in the source."
The critic remarks, "'What absurdity! Who ever heard of poisoning hail?
Cleopatra plainly desires that her heart's blood should be turned into that
delicious fluid the poisoning of which would indeed be a public calamity. Its
name is often incorrectly pronounced, we know, especially by Yankees, without
the aspirate! and the error was therefore easy. Read, without a doubt,
"'Ah dear! if I be so,
From my cold heart let heaven engender ale
And poison it in the source.'"
I am not prepared to assert positively that this emendation, which must be
pronounced both ingenious and elaborate, had its literary birth-place beyond
the Atlantic; but it certainly smacks more peculiarly of London than the
former does of New York or Boston. —W.]




CLASSIFICATION.              69
without noting that it refers to themselves. It is
said that this stoic indifference is a wonderful provision for the preservation of the purity of literature;
and that, were compositors to think with the author
under " the stick," they might make dire havoc.
Allowing for these peculiarities, it may surely be
believed that, between the compositors who put the
types together and the correctors of the press, the
printing of the Bible has generally been executed
with more than average care. Yet the editions of
the sacred book have been the great mine of discovered printers' blunders.  The inference from
this, however, is not that blunders abound less in
other literature, but that they are not worth finding there. The issuing of the true reading of the
Scripture is of such momentous consequence, that a
mistake is sure of exposure, like those minute incidents of evidence which come forth when a murder
has been committed, but would never have left their
privacy for the detection of a petty fraud.
The value to literature of a pure Shakspearian
text, has inspired the zeal of the detectives who
work on this ground. Some casual detections have
occurred in minor literature, —as, for instance,
when Akenside's description of the Pantheon, which
had been printed as "serenely great," was restored
to "severely great."  The reason, however, why
such detections are not common in common books,
is the rather humiliating one that they are not worth
making. The specific weight of individual words is
in them of so little influence, that one does as well




70                 HIS NATURE.
as another. Instances could indeed be pointed out,
where an incidental blunder has much improved a
sentence, giving it the point which its author failed
to achieve -as a scratch or an accidental splash of
the brush sometimes supplies the painter with the
ray or the cloud which the cunning of his hand
cannot accomplish.  Poetry in this way sometimes
endures the most alarming oscillations without being in any way damaged, but, on the contrary,
sometimes rather improved.  I might refer to a
signal instance of this, where, by some mysterious
accident at press, the lines of a poem written in
quatrains got their order inverted, so that the second and fourth of each quatrain changed places.
This transposition was pronounced to operate a
decided improvement on the spirit and originality
of the piece, - an opinion in which, unfortunately,
the author did not concur; nor could he appreciate
the compliment of a critic, who remarked that the
experiment tested the soundness of the lines, which
could find their feet whatever way they were thrown
about.1
There have been, no doubt, cruel instances of
printers' blunders in our own days, like the fate of
the youthful poetess in the Fudge family: -
1 One curious service of printer's blunders, of a character
quite distinct from their bibliological influence, is their use in
detecting plagiarisms. It may seem strange that there should
be any difficulty in critically determining the question, when
the plagiarism is so close as to admit of this test; but there are
pieces of very hard work in science, tables of reference, and the
like, where, if two people go through the same work, they will




CLASSIFICATION.                   7'When I talked of the dewdrops on freshly-blown roses,
The nasty things printed it - freshly-blown noses."
A solid scholar there was, who, had he been called
to his account at a certain advanced period of his
career, might have challenged all the world to say
that he had ever used a false quantity or committed
an anomaly in syntax, or misspelt a foreign name,
or blundered in a quotation from a Greek or Latin
classic — to misquote an English author is a far
lighter crime, but even to this he could have
pleaded not guilty. He never made a mistake in
a date, nor left out a word in copying the title-page
of a volume; nor did he ever, in affording an intelligent analysis of its contents, mistake the number
of pages devoted to one head.  As to the higher
literary virtues too, his sentences were all carefully
balanced in a pair of logical and rhetorical scales
of the most sensitive kind; and he never perpetrated the atrocity of ending a sentence with a
monosyllable, or using the same word twice within
the same five lines, choosing always some judicious
method  of circumlocution  to  obviate  reiteration.
Poor mal! in the pride of his unspotted purity,
he little knew what a humiliation fate had prepared
for him. It happened to him to have to state how
come to the same conclusion. In such cases, the prior worker
has sometimes identified his own by a blunder, as he would a
stolen china vase by a crack. Peignot complains that some
thirty or forty pages of his Dictio7naire Bibliograpphique were incorporated in the Siecles Litleraires de la France, " avec une exactitude si admirable, qu'on y a precieusement conservd toutes les
fautes typographiques."




72              HIS NATURE.
Theodore Beza, or some contemporary of his, went
to sea in a Candian vessel.  This statement, at
the last moment, when the sheet was going through
the press, caught the eye of an intelligent and
judicious corrector, more conversant with shippinglists than with the literature'of the sixteenth century, who saw clearly what had been meant, and
took upon himself, like a man who hated all pottering nonsense, to make the necessary correction
without consulting the author. The consequence
was, that people read with some surprise, under
the authority of the paragon of accuracy, that
Theodore Beza had gone to sea in a Canadian
vessel. The victim of this calamity had undergone
minor literary trials, which he had borne with philosophical equanimity; as, for instance, when inconsiderate people, destitute of the organ of veneration, thoughtlessly asked him about the last new
popular work, as if it were something that he had
read or even heard of, and actually went so far in
their contumelious disrespect as to speak to him
about the productions of a certain Charles Dickens.
The " Canadian vessel," however, was a more serious disaster, and was treated accordingly. A charitable friend broke his calamity to the author at a
judicious moment, to prevent him from discovering
it himself at an unsuitable time, with results the
full extent of which no one could foresee. It was
an affair of much anxiety among his friends, who
made frequent inquiries as to how he bore himself
in his affliction, and what continued to be the con



CLA SSlF CA T ON.            73
dition of his health, and especially of his spirits.
And although he was a confirmed book-hunter, and
not unconscious of the merits of the peculiar class
of books now under consideration, it may be feared
that it was no consolation to him to reflect that,
some century or so hlence, his books and himself
would be known only by the curious blunder which
made one of them worth the notice of the bookfanciers.
An odd accident occurred to a well-known book
lately published, called Thte Men of the Time. It
sometimes happens in a printing-office that some of
the types, perhaps a printed line or two, fall out of
"the forme."  Those in whose hands the accident
occurs, generally try to put things to rights as well
as they can, and may be very successful in restoring appearances with the most deplorable results to
the sense. It happened thus in the instance referred to. A few lines dropping out of the Life of
Robert Owen, the parallelogram Communist, were
hustled, as the nearest place of refuge, into the
biography of his closest alphabetical neighbor —
" Oxford, Bishop of."  The consequence is, that
the article begins as follows:" OXFORD, THE RIGHT REVEREND SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, BISHOP OF, was born in 1805. A more
kind-hearted and truly benevolent man does not
exist. A sceptic, as regards religious revelation,
he is nevertheless an out-and-out believer in spirit
movements."
Whenever this blunder was discovered, the leaf




74                  HIS NATURE.
was cancelled; but a few copies of the book had
got into circulation, which some day or other may
be very valuable.'
In  the  several phases of the  book-hunter, he
whose peculiar glory it is to have his books illustrated - the Grangerite, as he is technically termed
must not be omitted.  "Illustrating " a volume
consists in inserting in or binding up with it portraits, landscapes, and other works of art bearing a
reference to its contents.  This is materially different from  the other forms of the pursuit, in as far
as the quarry hunted down is the raw material, the
finished article being a result of domestic manufacture.  The illustrator is the very Ishmaelite of collectors - his hand is against every man, and every
man's hand is against him.  He destroys unknown
quantities of books to supply portraits or other
illustrations to a single volume of his own; and as
it is not always known concerning any book that
1 [Hardly.  The book, even in its last corrected and augmented form, is too full of blunders to be specially prized for
any particular one. With regard to this country its mistakes
are equally monstrous, manifold, and laughable. The variation
of even twenty years from the truth in the date, or from one
hundred to five hundred miles in the place, of a man's birth is
not very uncommon. And what shall be said of the absurdity,
for instance, of such a remark as that with regard to Mr. Bryant
that " probably we owe' Thanatopsis' " - that solemn philosophic poem upon death - "to the inspirations of his early love."
I will notice here a strange mistake made by Lowndes in his
Bibliographers' Manual which remains in the new edition, to
which Mr. Bohn has made so many valuable additions. " The
Federalist" is said to be "a collection of essays in which John
Williams alias Anthony Pasquins was concerned."  Shades of




CLA SSIFICATION.                  75
he has been at work on it, many a common bookbuyer has cursed him on inspecting his own last
bargain, and finding that it is deficient in an interesting portrait or two.  Tales there are, fitted to
make the blood run cold in the veins of the most
sanguine book-hunter, about the devastations committed by those who are given over to this special
pursuit. It is generally understood that they received the impulse which has rendered them an
important sect, from the publication of Granger's
biographical history - hence their name of Grangerites.  So it has happened that this industrious
and respectable compiler is contemplated with mysterious awe, as a sort of literary Attila or Gengis
Khan, who has spread terror and ruin around him.
In truth, the illustrator, whether green-eyed or not,
being a monster that doth make the meat he feeds
on, is apt to become excited with his work, and to
go on ever widening the circle of his purveyances,
Hamilton and Monroe, founders of the Great Republic, and
revered expositors of its Constitution, your noble work, which
stands almost alone, as being at once an undisputed authority
in politics and a classic in letters, is a series of essays in which
a pasquinading alias " was concerned;" and this is all! Not to
know who wrote " The Federalist," and what it is, and that the
men who wrote it, although of what a member of Parliament,
unrebuked in presence of the British Premier, calls " the scum
of the earth," were yet of a sort which does not admit the companionship of the Anthony Pasquins of London, is not culpable
in a British subject; the matter may be of no interest to him;
but when, pretending to speak with authority, he exhibits such
density of ignorance, both his ignorance and his pretence become ridiculous.- tW.



76               HIS NATURE.
and opening new avenues toward the raw material
on which he works. To show how widely such a
person may levy contributions, I propose to take,
not a whole volume, not even a whole page, but
still a specific and distinguished piece of English
literature, and describe the way in which a devotee
of this peculiar practice would naturally proceed in
illustrating it. The piece of literature to be illustrated is as follows: -
" How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower."
The first thing to be done is to collect every engraved portrait of the author, Isaac Watts.  The
next, to get hold of any engravings of the house in
which he was born, or houses in which he lived.
Then will come all kinds of views of Southampton
of its Gothic gate, and its older than Gothic
wall.  Any scrap connected with the inauguration
of the Watts statue must of course be scrupulously
gathered.  To go but a step beyond such commonplaces - there is a traditional story about the boyhood of Isaac which has been told as follows. He
took precociously to rhyming: like Pope, he lisped
in numbers, for the numbers came. It happened
that this practice was very offensive to his father,
a practical man, who, finding admonition useless,
resolved to stop it in an effectual manner.  He
accordingly, after the practice of his profession —




CLASSIFICATION.               77
being a schoolmaster -assailed with a leathern
thong, duly prepared, the cuticle of that portion
of the body which has from time immemorial been
devoted to such inflictions.  Under torture, the
divine songster abjured his propensity in the following very hopeful shape"Oh, father, do some pity take,
And I will no more verses make."
It is not likely that this simple domestic scene
has been engraved either for the Divine Hymns, or
the Improvement of the Mind. The illustrator will
therefore require to get a picture of it for his own
special use, and will add immensely to the value of
his treasure while he gives scope to the genius of a
Cruikshank or a Doyle.
We are yet, it will be observed, only on the
threshold. We have next to illustrate the substance of the poetry. All kinds of engravings of
bees, Attic and other, and of bee-hives, will be
appropriate, and will be followed by portraits of
Huber and other great writers on bees, and views
of Mount Hybla and other honey districts. Some
Scripture prints illustrative of the history of Samson, who had to do with honey and bees, will be
appropriate, as well as any illustrations of the fable
of the bear and the bees, or of the Roman story of
the sic vos non vobis. A still more appropriate form
of illustration may, however, be drawn upon by
remembering that a periodical called The Bee was
edited by Dr. Anderson; and it is important to




78               HIS NA TURE.
observe that the name was adopted in the very
spirit which inspired Watts. In both instances the
most respected of all winged insects was brought
forward as the type of industry. Portraits, then, of
Dr. Anderson, and any engravings that can be connected with himself and his pursuits, will have their
place in the collection. It will occur, perhaps, to
the intelligent illustrator, that Dr. Anderson was
the grandfather of Sir James Outram, and he will
thus have the satisfaction of opening his collection
for all illustrations of the career of that distinguished
officer. Having been aptly called the Bayard of
the Indian service, the collector who has exhausted
him and his services, will be justified by the principles of the craft in following up the chase, and picking up any wood-cuts or engravings referring to
the death of the false Bourbon, or any other scene in
the career of the Knight without Fear or Reproach.
Here, by a fortunate and interesting coincidence,
through the Bourbons the collector gets at the
swarms of bees which distinguish the insignia of
royalty in France. When the illustrator comes to
the last line, which invites him to add to what he
has already collected a representation of "every
opening flower," it is easy to see that he has indeed a rich garden of delights before him.
In a classification of book-hunters, the aspirants
after large-paper copies deserve special notice, were
it only for the purpose of guarding against a common fallacy which confounds them with the lovers
of tall copies. The difference is fundamental: large



CLASSIFICA TION.                  79
paper copies being created by system, while tall
copies are merely the creatures of accident; and
Dibdin bestows due castigation in a celebrated instance in which a mere tall copy had, whether from
ignorance or design, been spoken of as a large-paper
copy.  This high development of the desirable book
is the result of an arrangement to print so many
copies of a volume on paper of larger size than
that of the bulk of the impression.  The tall copy
is the result of careful cutting by the binder, or of
no cutting at all.  In this primitive shape a book
has separate charms for a distinct class of collectors
who esteem rough edges, and are willing, for the
sake of this excellence, to endure the martyrdom of
consulting books in that condition.l
1 "But devious oft, from ev'ry classic muse,
The keen collector meaner paths will choose:
And first the margin's breadth his soul employs,
Pure, snowy, broad, the type of nobler joys.
In vain might Homer roll the tide of song,
Or Horace smile, or Tully charm the throng;
If crost by Pallas' ire, the trenchant blade,
Or too oblique, or near the edge, invade,
The Bibliomane exclaims, with haggard eye,'No Margin!'-turns in haste, and scorns to buy."
2FERRIER's Bibliomania, v. 34-43
[Few, very few book collectors, I would fain believe, are so
wedded to a whim as to have books with the top edges rough.
It would seem that only such bibliomaniacs as read no books,
except catalogues, could really desire them in such a condition.
" Uncut " is understood among all sane bibliomaniacs to refer to
the fore-edge and the bottom edge. A book which is intended to
fulfil any function, to which a block of wood, leathered and gilt
and lettered in like manner is not equally fitted, should have the




80                  HIS NATURE.
The historian of the private libraries of New
York makes us acquainted with a sect well known
in the actually sporting world, but not heretofore
familiar in the biblical.1 Here is a description of
top edge cut and gilt or stained; otherwise not only will the consulting, or even the showing, of it be a penance for folly, but the
rough top edges will retain dust which will sift down between
the leaves and thus deface the book inside as well as out. This
dust can be blown from a book, the top edges of which have
been polished, as if from glass. The top edge being thus cared
for, the condition of the fore-edge and the bottom edge are subjects of legitimate caprice; for no man who is worthy of being
the possessor of a good book will ever dream of turning the
leaves in any other way than with the thumb on the page and
fore finger at the top. All other modes are barbarous.
It is worth while to caution the collector against indiscriminate large paper gathering. There is always, of course, a certain
distinction about a large paper copy, because it is one of a small
number, specially prepared, and much costlier than those of the
ordinary size. To certain books this luxury of margins is very
appropriate, if the margin is well proportioned to the page;
though it should be always remembered that the addition to the
margin adds to the weight of the book, makes it less convenient
to handle, and in effect diminishes by so much the capacity of
the library shelves. The omnivorous Mr. HIeber, of whom the
author subsequently speaks, looked upon large paper with abhorrence, on account of the room which it took up. Sometimes,
too, it is pushed to a ridiculous and uncomely extreme. There
are many books which have been printed on paper of three sizes,
— ordinary, large, and largest; and of these the largest is not
always the most beautiful. Other things being equal, quality
is of more importance than size of paper; and of many books
there are special copies on laid, on fine, and on India paper,
which, with reason, are eagerly sought by those who, like the
author of " The Wealth of Nations," are dandies in their libraries. - W.]
1 [The author errs here, whether he uses the word "biblical"
with reference to books in general, or to men who are profes



CLASSIFICATION.                  81
the WValtonian library of the Reverend Dr. Bethune.
In the sunshine he is a practical angler, and"During the darker seasons of the year, when
forbidden the actual use of his rod, our friend has
occupied himself with excursions through sale catalogues, fishing out from  their dingy pages whatever
tends to honor his favorite author or favorite art,
so that his spoils now  number nearly five hundred volumes, of all sizes and dates.  Pains have
been taken to have not only copies of the works included in the list, but also the several editions; and
when it is of a work mentioned by Walton, an edition which the good old man himself may have seen.
Thus the collection has all the editions of Walton,
Cotton, and Venables in existence, and, with few
exceptions, all the works referred to by Walton, or
which tend to illustrate his favorite rambles by the
Lea or the Dove. Every scrap of Walton's writing, and every compliment paid to him, have been
carefully gathered and garnered up, with prints and
autographs and some precious manuscripts. Nor
sional expounders of The Book, or quibbles between the two.
The Waltonians have been a long-recognized sept of the race
of book-hunters; and the vigor and pertinacity with which they
pursue their game put Piscator, Auceps, and Nimrod himself
to shame, as any one must know who has entered the lists with
them. As to Reverend fishermen, the author must have forgotten Dr. Paley, not to speak of Peter, and the sons of the father
of Zebedee's children, the puzzle as to whose immediate paternal
ancestor has so often shown that it is not only a wise child that
knows his own father. Apostles and saints though these were,
they could hardly have had purer minds or kinder hearts than
he who is the occasion of this note.- W.1
6




82               HIS NATURE.
does the department end here, but embraces most
of the older and many of the modern writers on
ichthyology and angling."
tyje'JrowArr anb llty 2udtion-jjaulltrr., A   HESE incidental divisions are too numerous and complex for a proper classification of book-hunters, and I am inclined to go back to the idea that their
most effective and comprehensive division is into
the private prowler and the auction-haunter. The
difference between these is something like, in the
sporting world, that between the stalker and the
hunter proper. Each function has its merits, and
calls for its special qualities and sacrifices.  The
one demands placidity, patience, caution, plausibility, and unwearied industry — such attributes as
those which have been already set forth in the words
of the Antiquary.  The auction-room, on the other
hand, calls forth courage, promptness, and the spirit
of adventure.  There is wild work sometimes there,
and men find themselves carried off by enthusiasm
and competition towards pecuniary sacrifices which
at the threshold of the auction-room they had solemnly vowed to themselves to eschew. But such
sacrifices are the tribute paid to the absorbing interest of the pursuit, and are looked upon in their own
peculiar circle as tending to the immortal honor of




THE A UCTION-IA4 UNTER.                 83
those who make them.  This field of prowess has,
it is said, undergone a prejudicial change in these
days, the biddings being nearly all by dealers, while
gentlemen-collectors are gradually moving  out of
the field.  In old days one might have reaped for
himself, by bold and emphatic biddings at a few
auctions, a niche in that temple of fame, of which
the presiding deity is Dr. Frognall Dibdin-  a name
familiarly abbreviated into that of Foggy Dibdin.
His descriptions of auction-contests are perhaps the
best and most readable portions of his tremendously
overdone books.1
1 [Dibdin's books are not only excessively written, but they
are brimful of apparently inbred, and hugely developed flunkyism and snobbishness, (unpleasant words, but without more
acceptable equivalents,) and their language is defiled with cant
not less offensive than that of the ring, the turf, or the conventicle, or any cant, indeed, for all of it is loathsome. Some bookhunters, when they get together to " talk book," seem to think
it necessary to show their command of this nauseous vocabulary,
which even before it became cant was but silly babble. Let men
who really love books, and read them, eschew it. Dibdin's books
are valuable for their information and their illustrations; although
in the former respect they frequently lead astray. I have seen a
letter from the late Thomas Rodd, bookseller, of London, who in
bibliography could have put Dibdin to school, in which he speaks
of Sir Walter Scott as the most inaccurate of writers, except
Thomas Frognall Dibdin. The charge is exaggerated in both
cases; but not so much so in the former as most readers are ready
to believe. Scott, standing head and shoulders above all British
writers of imaginative literature, (for he cannot properly be
called an English author,) and next to Shakespeare among those
who have used the English tongue, has yet written hardly a
page in which there cannot be detected some error of fact or of
language, generally trivial, of course, but sometimes important.- W.]




84              EHIS NATURE.
Conspicuous beyond all others stands forth the
sale of the Roxburghe library, perhaps the most
eminent contest of that kind on record.  There
were of it some ten thousand separate "lots," as
auctioneers call them, and almost every one of them
was a book of rank and mark in the eyes of the collecting community, and had been, with special pains
and care and anxious exertion, drawn into the vortex
of that collection. Although it was created by a
Duke, yet it has been rumored that most of the
books were bargains, and that the noble collector
drew largely on the spirit of patient perseverance
and enlightened sagacity for which Monkbarns
claims credit. The great passion and pursuit of
his life having been of so peculiar a character- he
was almost as zealous a hunter of deer and wild
swans, by the way, as of books, but this was not
considered in the least peculiar —it was necessary
to find some strange influencing motive for his conduct; so it has been said that it arose from his having been crossed in love in his early youth. Such
crosses, in general, arise from the beloved one dying, or proving faithless and becoming the wife of
another.  It was, however, the peculiarity of the
Duke's misfortune, that it arose out of the illustrious marriage of the sister of his elected. She was
the eldest daughter of the Duke of MecklenburgStrelitz. Though purchased by a sacrifice of regal
rank, yet there would be many countervailing advantages in the position of an affluent British Duchess, which might reconcile a young lady even of so




THE A UCTION-HA UNTER.                  85
illustrious a descent, to the sacrifice, had it not happened that Lord Bute and the Princess of Wales
selected her younger sister to be the wife of George
III. and the Queen of Great Britain, long known
as the good Queen Charlotte. Then there arose, it
seems, the necessity, as a matter of state and political etiquette, that the elder sister should abandon
the alliance with a British subject.l
So, at all events, goes the story of the origin of
the Duke's bibliomania; and it is supposed to have
been in the thoughts of Sir Walter Scott, when he
said of him  that "youthful misfortunes, of a kind
against which neither wealth nor rank possess a
talisman, cast an early shade of gloom over his
prospects, and gave to one splendidly endowed with
the means of enjoying society that degree of reserved melancholy which prefers retirement to the
splendid  scenes of gaiety."   Dibdin, with  more
1 [Could there be a more telling illustration of the childish
triviality as well as of the oppressive tyranny of the State and
political etiquette which still maintains itself in the monarchies of
Europe,- which in fact spreads and strengthens, as monarchy is
passing into a feeble show, a dumb and grotesque image of what
was once a living power! Is it not strange that an intelligent
and independent people will suffer the continued existence of
such a patent absurdity, - one which costs so much, beside.
Kings, if you please, so that they are kings; but these kings of
" shreds and patches," which, if they were not bolstered up and
bombasted out with State and political etiquette, would fall flatlong into the rag-bag, - not having the wherewith to go headlong, -fit only to be thrust into the rubbish-room or sold to curiosity hunters and old clo' dealers!  The German lad named
Albert Edward who was here a year or two ago seemed an intelligent, well-mannered, well-meaning youth, - high praise for one




86                  HIS NATURE.
specific precision, after rambling  over the  house
where the great auction-sale occurred, as inquisitive
people are apt to do, tells us of the solitary room
occupied by the Duke, close to his library, in which
he slept and died: "all his migrations," says the
bibliographer,,' were conflned to these two rooms.
When  Mr. Nichol showed  me the very bed  on
which this bibliomaniacal Duke had expired, I felt
as I trust I ought to have felt on the occasion."
Scott attributed to an incidental occurrence at his
father's table the direction given to the great pursuit of his life.  " Lord Oxford and Lord Sunderland, both famous collectors of the time, dined one
day with the second Duke of Roxburghe, when
their conversation happened to turn upon the editio
princess of Boccaccio, printed in Venice in 1474,
and so rare that its very existence was doubted of."
It so happened that the Duke remembered this volof his family, on the mother's side, - is it not, Mr. Thackeray?
As a man, he won the respect of all with whom he came in contact; nay, he awoke a tender solicitude for one to whom the future might bring woes, surely would bring trials. But as a
prince, his three ostrich-feathers are not a lighter vanity; as a
king, his crown, with or without his or any other head in it, it
makes no matter, will not be an emptier show. And to sacrifice
to these things the heart's happiness, and the hard wrung sweat,
the very life's blood of great peoples! A Czar is something, -
nay, even an Emperor of the French, while he lasts, - but a king
over English men, who have common sense, and who call themselves free, and are so, and who know most of them, and who all
in a few months might be safely taught, what a costly sham such
a creature is, being no more regal, in fact, than John Doe and
Richard Roe, —such a fiction should have long since passed
away, and would have done so but for the few who keep it up
for their own aggrandizement. - W.]




THE A UCTION-HA UNTER.            87
ume having been offered to him for ~100, and he
believed he could still trace and secure it: he did
so, and laid it before his admiring friends at a subsequent sitting.  "' His son, then Marquess of Beaumont, never forgot the little scene upon this occasion, and used to ascribe to it the strong passion
which he ever afterwards felt for rare books and
editions, and which rendered him one of the most
assiduous and judicious collectors that ever formed
a sumptuous library." 1 And this same Boccaccio
was the point of attack which formed the climax in
the great contest of the Roxburghe roup, as the
Duke's fellow-countrymen called it.
The historian of the contest terms it "the Waterloo  among  book-battles," whereto  "many a
knight came far and wide from his retirement, and
many an unfledged combatant left his father's castle
to partake of the glory of such a contest."  He also
tells us that the honor of the first effective shot was
due to a house in the trade —Messrs. Payne and
Foss -by whom " the Aldine Greek Bible was
killed off the first in the contest. It produced the
sum of ~4, 14s. 6d.  Thus measuredly, and guardedly, and even fearfully, did this tremendous battle
begin." The earliest brilliant affair seems to have
come off when Lord Spencer bought two Caxtons for ~245, a feat of which the closing scene
is recorded, with a touching simplicity, in these
terms:-" His Lordship put each volume under his
1 Article on Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in the 21st vol. of Miscellaneous Prose Works.




88              illS NATURE.
coat, and walked home with them in all the flush of
victory and consciousness of triumph." As every
one does not possess a copy of the three costly volumes of which the Bibliographical Decameron consists -and, further, as many a one so fortunate as
to possess them has not had patience and perseverance enough to penetrate to the middle of the third
volume, where the most readable part is to be found
-a characteristic extract, describing the heat of
the contest, may not be unwelcome: —
"For two-and-forty successive days - with the
exception only of Sundays- -were the voice and
hammer of Mr. Evans heard with equal efficacy in
the dining-room of the late Duke, which had been
appropriated to the vendition of the books; and
within that same space (some thirty-five feet by
twenty) were such deeds of valor performed, and
such feats of book-heroism achieved, as had never
been previously beheld, and of which the like will
probably never be seen again. The shouts of the
victors and the groans of the vanquished stunned
and appalled you as you entered. The striving
and press, both of idle spectators and determined
bidders, was unprecedented.  A sprinkling of Caxtons and De Wordes marked the first day, and
these were obtained at high, but, comparatively
with the subsequent sums given, moderate prices.
Theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and philology
chiefly marked the earlier days of this tremendous
contest; and occasionally during these days there
was much stirring up of courage, and many hard




THE A UCIYION-HA U.NTER.        89
and heavy blows were interchanged; and the combatants may be said to have completely wallowed
themselves in the conflict. At length came poetry,
Latin, Italian, and French: a steady fight yet continued to be fought; victory seemed to hang in
doubtful scales - sometimes on the one, sometimes
on the other side of Mr. Evans, who preserved
throughout (as it was his bounden duty to preserve)
a uniform, impartial, and steady course; and who
may be said on that occasion, if not' to have rode th e
whirlwind,' at least to have'directed the storm.'"
But the dignity and power of the historian's narrative cannot be fully appreciated until we find him
in the midst of the climax of the contest -the battle, which gradually merged into a single combat,
for the possession of the Venetian Boccaccio. According to the established historical practice, we
have in the first place a statement of the position
taken up by the respective "forces."
"At length the moment of sale arrived. Evans
prefaced the putting-up of the article by an appropriate oration, in which he expatiated on its extreme rarity, and concluding by informing the
company of the regret, and even anguish of heart,
expressed by Mr. Van Praet that such a treasure
was not to be found in the Imperial collection at
Paris. Silence followed the address of Mr. Evans.
On his right hand, leaning against the wall, stood
Earl Spencer; a little lower down, and standing at
right angles with his Lordship, appeared the Marquess of Blandford. Lord Althorp stood a little




90               HIS NATURE.
backward, to the right of his father, Earl Spencer."
The first movement of the forces gives the historian an opportunity of dropping a withering sneer
at an unfortunate man, so provincial in his notions
as to suppose that a hundred pounds or two would
be of any avail in such a contest.
" The honor of firing the first shot was due to a
gentleman of Shropshire, unused to this species of
warfare, and who seemed to recoil from the reverberation of the report himself had made.' One
hundred guineas,' he exclaimed. Again a pause
ensued; but anon the biddings rose rapidly to five
hundred guineas. Hitherto, however, it was evident that the firing was but masked and desultory.
At length all random shots ceased, and the champions before named stood gallantly up to each
other, resolving not to flinch from a trial of their
respective strengths. A thousand guineas were bid
by Earl Spencer -to which the Marquess added
ten. You might have heard a pin drop. All eyes
were turned — all breathing wellnigh stopped -
every sword was put home within its scabbard —
and not a piece of steel was seen to move or to
glitter except that which each of these champions
brandished in his valorous hand."
But even this exciting sort of narrative will tire
one when it goes on page after page, so that we
must take a leap to the conclusion. " Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds," said Lord
Spencer.  "The spectators were now absolutely




THE A UCTION-HA UNTER.            91
electrified.  The Marquess quietly adds his usual
ten," and so there an end.  "Mr. Evans, ere his
hammer fell, made a short pause — and indeed, as
if by something preternatural, the ebony instrument
itself seemed to be charmed or suspended in the
mid air.  However, at last down dropped the hammer."
Such a result naturally created excitement beyond the book-collectors' circle, for here was an
actual stroke of trade in which a profit of more
than two thousand per cent. had been netted.  It
is easy to believe in Dibdin's statement of the
crowds of people who imagined they were possessors of the identical Venetian Boccaccio, and the
still larger number who wanted to do a stroke of
business with some old volume, endowed with the
same rarity and the same or greater intrinsic value.
The general excitement created by the dispersal of
the Roxburghe collection proved anl epoch in literary history, by the establishment of the Roxburghe
Club, followed by a series of others, the history of
which has to be told farther on.
Of the great book-sales that have been commemorated, it is curious to observe how  seldom
they embrace ancestral libraries accumulated in old
houses from generation to generation, and how generally they mark the shortlived duration of the
accumulations of some collector freshly deposited.
One remarkable exception to this was in the Gordonstoun library, sold in 1816. It was begun by
Sir Robert Gordon, a Morayshire laird of the time




92                HIS NATUR E.
of the great civil wars of the seventeenth century.
He was the author of the History of the Earldom
of Sutherland, and a man of great political as well
as literary account. He laid by heaps of the pamphlets, placards, and other documents of his stormy
period; and thus many a valuable morsel, which
had otherwise disappeared from  the world, left a
representative in the Gordonstoun collection.1 It
was increased by a later Sir Robert, who had the
reputation of being a wizard. He belonged to one
of those terrible clubs from which Satan is entitled
to take a victim annually; but when Gordon's turn
came, he managed to get off with merely the loss
of his shadow; and many a Morayshire peasant
has testified to having seen him riding forth on a
sunny day, the shadow of his horse visible, with
those of his spurs and his whip, but his body offering no impediment to the rays of the sun. He
enriched the library with books on necromancy,
demonology, and alchemy.
The greatest book-sale probably that ever was
in the world, was that of Heber's collection in
1834.  There are often rash estimates made of the
size of libraries, but those who have stated the
number of his books in six figures, seem justified
when one looks at the catalogue of the sale, bound
up in five thick octavo volumes.  For results so
1 [It is perhaps worthy of remark that this library was barren
of Shakespeare's works, although it was collected by a gentleman of wealth and of curious as well as literary tastes, at a
time when the now almost priceless quartos might have been
bought for a shilling.- W.]




THE  A UCTION-HA UNTER.          93
magnificent, Richard Heber's library had but a
small beginning, according to the memoir of him
in the Gentleman's Magazine, where it is said, that
" having one day accidentally met with a little
volume, called The Vallie of TVarietie, by Henry
Peachaln, he took it to the late Mr. Bindley of the
Stamp-office, the celebrated collector, and asked
him if this was not a curious book. Mr. Bindley,
after looking at it, answered,' Yes — not verybut rather a curious book.'"  This faint morsel of
encouragement was, it seems, sufficient to start him
in his terrible career; and the trifle becomes important as a solemn illustration of the obsta principiis. His labors, and even his perils, were on a
par with those of any veteran commander who has
led armies and:fought battles during the great
part of a long life. He would set off on a journey
of several hundred miles any day in search of a
book not in his collection. Sucking in from all
around him whatever books were afloat, he of
course soon exhausted the ordinary market; and
to find a book obtainable which he did not already
possess, was an event to be looked to with the
keenest anxiety, and a chance to be seized with
promptitude, courage, and decision.  At last, however, he could not supply the cravings of his appetite without recourse to duplicates, and far more
than duplicates. His friend Dibdin said of him,
" He has now and then an ungovernable passion
to possess more copies of a book than there were
ever parties to a deed or stamina to a plant; and




94                 HIS NATURE.
therefore I cannot call him a duplicate or a triplicate collector."  HIe satisfied his own conscience
by adopting a creed, which he enounced thus: —
"Why, you see, sir, no man can comfortably do
without three copies of a book.  One he must have
for a show copy, and he will probably keep it at
his country-house; another he will require for his
own use and reference; and unless he is inclined
to part with this, which is very inconvenient, or
risk the injury of his best copy, he must needs have
a third at the service of his friends."
This last necessity is the key-note to Heber's
popularity: he was a liberal and kindly man, and
though, like Wolsey, he was unsatisfied in getting,
yet, like him, in bestowing he was most princely.
Many scholars and authors obtained the raw material for their labors from  his transcendent stores.
These, indeed, might be said less to be personal to
himself than to be a feature in the literary geography of Europe.   " Some years ago," says the
writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, "he built a
new library at his house at Hodnet, which is said
to be full. His residence at Pimlico, where he died,
is filled, like Magliabechi's at Florence, with books,
from  the top to the bottom-every chair, every
table, every passage, containing piles of erudition.l
1 [This reminds me of a story which I heard the wife of a
book-lover of incomparably humbler means and more modest
pretensions than Heber tell, with rueful merriment. She had
gone into the country to pass the summer months, leaving the
man that owned her in town, to solace himself with his dearly
beloved silent companions, interrupting his ruminations by occa



THE A UCTION-HA UNTER.                  95
He had another house in York Street, leading to
Great James's Street, Westminster, laden from  the
ground-floor to the garret with curious books.  He
had a library in the High Street, Oxford, an immense library at Paris, another at Antwerp, another
at Brussels, another at Ghent, and at other places
in the Low Countries and in Germany."
sional flying visits to those of a noisier sort. When she went
away, every shelf, not only of every case, but of every closet to
which a man could lay claim, was loaded down with books, and
every available trunk and box was stuffed to bursting with the
same ponderous and dusty wealth. As autumn approached, she
had occasion to go suddenly to town, and went without warning.
Having reached home, she entered the library, expecting to find
her husband. He was not there; and had he been there, he
would have been obliged to stand or perch; for every table and
every chair was heaped to groaning with books - new-comers.
This was exciting; but it might have been expected; it was not
unnatural. She went up to her own apartments. The same
sight met her astonished eye. Her very dressing-bureau, which
she had opportunely emptied before her departure, was filled to
the last inch of the last drawer; nay, even her wash-stand itself,
top and bottom, was stuffed with musty lore, the outside of
which seemed much in need of the soap and water which it had
displaced. And last aggravation of all, there was the gude-mlan
himself stretched at full length upon the nuptial couch, in breezy
undress, hard at work with pencil and paper, and surrounded
with a barricade of books, over which she peered to see it doubly
strong along the place where her lovely limbs had lain. She declared war upon the spot. But, as in the case of all wives like
her, there was a cherished traitor in her own camp; and she
was utterly defeated. - W.]




PART II. HIS FUNCTIONS.
U)e jobb.
A-i  AVING devoted the preceding pages
to the diagnosis of the book-hunter's
condition, or, in other words, to the
-; flak.\ different shapes which the phenom-. i__ ena peculiar to it assume, I now
propose to offer some account of his place in the
dispensations of Providence, which will probably
show that he is not altogether a mischievous or a
merely useless member of the human family, but
does inll reality, however unconsciously to himself,
minister in his own peculiar way to the service both
of himself and others. This is to be a methodical
discourse, and therefore to be divided and subdivided, insomuch that, taking in the first place his
services to himself, this branch shall be subdivided
into the advantages which are purely material and
those which are properly intellectual.
And, first, of material advantages. Holding it
to be the inevitable doom of fallen man to inherit
some frailty or failing, it would be difficult, had he
a Pandora's box-full to pick and choose among, to
find one less dangerous or offensive. As the judi



THE HOBBY                  97
cious physician informs the patient, suffering under
some cutaneous or other external torture, that the
poison lay deep in his constitution - that it must
have worked in some shape -and well it is that it
has taken one so innocuous- so may even the
book-hunter be congratulated on having taken the
innate moral malady of all the race in a very gentle
and rather a salubrious form.  To pass over gambling, tippling, and other practices which cannot be
easily spoken of in good society, let us look to the;
other shapes in which man lets himself out - for,
instance to horse-racing, hunting, pbotography,.
shooting, fishing, cigars, dog-fancying, dog-fighting,,
the ring, the cockpit, phrenology, revivalism, social —
ism; which of these contains so small a balance of
evil? counting of course that the amount of pleasure
conferred is equal - for it is only on the datum
that the book-hunter has as much satisfaction from
his pursuit as the fox-hunter, the photographer, and
so on, has in his that a fair comparison can be
struck. These pursuits, one and all, leave little or
nothing that is valuable behind them, except, it
may be, that some of them are conducive to health,.
by giving exercise to the body and a genial excitement to the mind; but every hobby gives the latter, and the former may be easily obtained in some
other shape.  They leave little or nothing behind: even the photographer's portfolio will bring
scarcely anything under the hammer after the
death of him whose solace and pursuit it had been,,
should the positives remain visible,. which may be
7




98              HIS FUNCTI ONS.
doubted. And as to the other enumerated pursuits, some of them, as we all know, are immensely
costly, all unproductive as they are.
But the book-hunter may possibly leave a little
fortune behind him.  His hobby, in fact, merges
into an investment. This is the light in which a,celebrated Quaker collector of paintings put his
conduct, when it was questioned by the brethren,
in virtue of that right to admonish one another concerning the errors of their ways, which makes them
so chary in employing domestic servants of their
own persuasion.  " What had the brother paid for
that bauble (a picture by Wouvermans), for instance? "  "'Well, ~300."  " Was not that, then,
an awful wasting of his substance on vanities? "
" No.  He had been offered ~900 for it.  If any
of the Friends was prepared to offer him a better
investment of his money than one that could be:realized at a profit of 200 per cent., he was ready
-to alter the existing disposal of his capital."
It is true that amateur purchasers do not, in the
long run, make a profit, though an occasional bargain may pass through their hands. It is not
maintained that, in the general case, the libraries of
collectors would be sold for more than they cost, or
even for nearly so much; but they are always
-worth something, which is more than can be said of
the residue of other hobbies and pursuits.  Nay,:farther; the scholarly collector of books is not like
the ordinary helpless amateur; for although, doubtless, nothing will rival the dealer's instinct for




THE HOBBY.                 99
knowing the money-value of an article, though he
may know nothing else about it, yet there is often a
subtle depth in the collector's educated knowledge
which the other cannot match, and bargains may
be obtained off the counters of the most acute.
A small sprinkling of these - even the chance of
them- excites him, like the angler's bites and
rises, and gives its zest to his pursuit. It is the
reward of his patience, his exertion, and his skill,
after the manner in which Monkbarns has so well
spoken; and it is certain that, in many instances,
a collector's library has sold for more than it cost
him.
No doubt, a man may ruin himself by purchasing
costly books, as by indulgence in any other costly
luxury, but the chances of calamity are comparatively small in this pursuit. A thousand pounds
will go a great way in book-collecting, if the collector be true to the traditions of his pursuit, such
as they are to be hereafter expounded. There has
been one instance, doubtless, in the records of bibliomania, of two thousand pounds having been
given for one book. But how many instances far
more flagrant could be found in picture-buying?
Look around upon the world and see how many
men are the victims of libraries, and compare them
with those whom the stud, the kennel, and the preserve have brought to the Gazette. Find out, too,
anywhere, if you can, the instances in which the money scattered in these forms comes back again, and
brings with it a large profit, as the expenditure of




100                HIS FUNCTIOVS.
the Duke of Roxburghe did when his library was
sold.,
But it is necessary to arrest this train of argument, lest its tenor might be misunderstood.  The
mercenary spirit must not be admitted to a share in
the enjoyments of the book-bunter.  If, after he
has taken his last survey of his treasures, and spent
his last hour in that quiet library, where he has
ever found his chief solace against the wear and
worry of the world, the book-hunter shall be taken
1 [True, the discreet expenditure of money in books is, under
ordinary circumstances, and if the books be well cared for, a
safe, and sometimes a profitable, investment. But let not any
man be therefore tempted into spending money thus which he
cannot well afford to do without and let lie idle. A library pays
no interest; and more volumes than an ordinary bookcaseful, or
two, are an occasion of great trouble and of some expense. And
above all, let no man gather together more books than all of us
who are tolerably well-to-do have in this country, unless he has
good reason to believe himself settled in a home for life. The
moving and reshelving of anything like a library -that is, of
more than a thousand or twelve hundred volumes - is inexpressibly troublesome and vexatious; and besides, let it be done
with as much care as possible, the books are almost sure to
receive some injury.  A well-chosen library, even a small
one, of two or three thousand volumes, is a rich possession,
full of pure enjoyment to a man worthy of it; but unless he is
beyond the consideration of hours and dollars, and even then, it
brings with it corresponding trouble, with this sad consequence,
that, for that very trouble, he will love it and cling to it the
more. No: the professional man of letters, or the man of elegant leisure and literary tastes, with money to spare, may justifiably collect books, to a moderate degree; but let all others,
after gathering enough books to live upon, if they must collect
something, collect money, which will always command money's
worth. - W.]




TRIE HOBBY.               101
to his final place of rest, and it is then discovered
that the circumstances of the family require his
treasures to be dispersed, - should the unexpected
result be that his pursuit has not been so ruinously costly after all —nay, that his expenditure
has actually fructified — it is well.  But if the bookhunter allow money-making - even for those he is
to leave behind -to be combined with his pursuit,
it loses its fresh relish, its exhilarating influence,
and becomes the source of wretched cares and paltry anxieties. Where money is the object, let a
man speculate or become a miser - a very enviable
condition to him  who has the saving grace to
achieve it, if we hold with Byron that the accumulation of money is the only passion that never
cloys.
Let not the collector, therefore, ever, unless in
some urgent and necessary circumstances, part with
any of his treasures.  Let him not even have recourse to that practice called barter, which political
philosophers tell us is the universal resource of
mankind preparatory to the invention of money as
a circulating medium and means of exchange. Let
him  confine all his transactions in the market to
purchasing only. No good ever comes of gentlemen
amateurs buying and selling. They will either be
systematic losers, or they will acquire shabby, questionable habits, from which the professional dealers
-on whom, perhaps, they look down - are exempt.  There are two trades renowned for the
quackery and the imposition with which they are




102             MIS FUNCTIONS.
habitually stained —the trade in horses and the
trade in old pictures; and these have, I verily believe, earned their evil reputation chiefly from this,
that they are trades in which gentlemen of independent fortune and considerable position are in the
habit of embarking.
The result is not so unaccountable as it might
seem. The professional dealer, however smart he
may be, takes a sounder estimate of any individual
transaction than the amateur. It is his object, not
so much to do any single stroke of trade very successfully, as to deal acceptably with the public, and
make his money in the long run.  Hence he does
not place an undue estimate on the special article
he is to dispose of, but will let it go at a loss, if that
is likely to prove the most beneficial course for his
trade at large. He has no special attachment to
any of the articles in which he deals, and no blindly
exaggerated appreciation of their merits and value.
They come and go in an equable stream, and the
cargo of yesterday is sent abroad to the world with
the same methodical indifference with which that
of to-day is unshipped. It is otherwise with the
amateur. He feels towards the article he is to part
with all the prejudiced attachment, and all the consequent over-estimate, of a possessor.  Hence he
and the market take incompatible views as to value,
and he is apt to become unscrupulous in his efforts
to do justice to himself. Let the single-minded and
zealous collector, then, turn the natural propensity to
over-estimate one's own into its proper and legiti



THE HOBBY.                    103
mate channel.   Let him  guard  his treasures as
things too sacred for commerce, and say, Procul,
o procul este, profani, to all who may attempt by
bribery and corruption to drag  them  from  their
legitimate shelves.  If, in any weak moment, he
yield to mercenary temptation, he will be forever
mourning after the departed unit of his treasure —
the lost sheep of his flock.  If it seems to be in the
decrees of fate that all his gatherings are to be dispersed abroad after he has gone to his rest, let him,
at all events, retain the reliance that on them, as on
other things beloved, he may have his last look:
there will be many changes after that, and this will
be among them. Nor, in his final reflections on
his conduct to himself and to those he is to leave,
will he be disturbed by the thought that the hobby
which was his enjoyment, has been in any wise the
more costly to him that he has not made it a means
of mercenary money-getting.1
1 Atticus was under the scandal of having disposed of his
books, and Cicero sometimes hints to him that lie might let
more of them go his way. In truth, Atticus carried this so far,
however, that he seems to have been a sort of dealer, and the
earliest instance of a capitalist publisher. He had slaves whom
he occupied in copying, and was in fact much in the position of
a rich Virginian or Carolinian, who should find that the most
profitable investment for his stock of slaves is a printing and
publishing establishment.




104             RIS FUNCTIONS.
Clye  Deu1toor   reaber, or BollejCmal of
i AVING so put in a plea for this purp' suit, as about the least costly foible to
~, ~;) which those who can afford to indulge'   in foibles can devote themselves, one
might descant on certain auxiliary advantages -as,
that it is not apt to bring its votaries into low
company; that it offends no one, and it is not likely
to foster actions of damages for nuisance, trespass,
or assault, and the like.  But rather let us turn our
attention to the intellectual advantages accompanying the pursuit, since the proper function of books
is in the general case associated with intellectual
culture and occupation.  It would seem that, according to a received prejudice or opinion, there is
one exception to this general connection, in the case
of the possessors of libraries, who are under a vehement suspicion of not reading their books.  Well,
perhaps it is true in the sense in which those who
utter the taunt understand the reading of a book.
That one should possess no books beyond his power,of perusal —that he should buy no faster than as
he can read straight through what he has already'bought — is a supposition alike preposterous and
unreasonable.  "Surely you have far more books
than you can read," is sometimes the inane remark,of the barbarian who gets his books, volume by vol



THE DESULTORY READER.           105
nine, from some circulating library or reading club,
and reads them  all through, one after the other,
with a dreary dutifulness, that he may be sure he
has got the value of his money.
It is true that there are some books - as Homer,
Virgil, Horace, Milton, Shakespeare, and Scott —
which every man should read who has the opportunity -should read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest. To neglect the opportunity of becoming
familiar with them is deliberately to sacrifice the
position in the social scale which an ordinary education enables its possessor to reach.  But is one
next to read through the sixty and odd folio volumes of the Bolandist Lives of the Saints, and the
new edition of the Byzantine historians, and the
State Trials, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, and.Moreri, and the Statutes at Large, and the Gentleman's Magazine from  the beginning, each separately, and in  succession?  Such a course of
reading would certainly do a good deal towards
weakening the mind, if it did not create absolute
insanity.
But in all these just named, even in the Statutes
at Large, and in thousands upon thousands of other
books, there is precious honey to be gathered by
the literary busy bee, who passes on from flower
to flower. In fact, " a course of reading," as it is
sometimes called, is a course of regimen for dwarfing the mind, like the drugs which dog-breeders
give to King-Charles spaniels to keep them small.
Within the span of life allotted to man there is but




106                HIS FUNCTIONS.
a certain number of books that it is practicable to
read through; and it is not possible to make a selection that will not, in a manner, wall in the mind
from  a free expansion over the republic of letters.
The being chained, as it were, to one intellect in
the perusal straight on of any large book, is a sort
of mental slavery superinducing imbecility.1 Even
Gibbon's Decline and Fall, luminous and comprehensive as its philosophy is, and rapid and brilliant
1 [Criticism of the style of this charming book is no part of
the purpose of these notes; but I am sure that an author who
writes English with so much clearness and idiomatic force,
should he see this edition, will take in good part a kindly plea
against the use of such a useless, overgrown pretender in our
language as "superinduce."  It is lamentably common, I must
admit, and is becoming daily more so. But therefore all the
more should we withstand it. Superinduce! why not, bring
on?  Is there a shade of meaning in the four syllables that
there is not in the two? And yet I once heard a worthy woman
who wished to be elegant, say of her husband, that he was " sufferin' very bad with bronchriches which were superinduced by
excessive exposure."  The truth and the English of which was
that the good man had a cough brought on by getting very wet
and cold. How many good and really sensible people have I
heard painfully twisting simple English tongues round these slippery, many-syllabled strangers, when good home words, which
they were born to speak, would have done their work much better. Nay, have we not lately seen the " Tribune " itself backsliding upon this point of sound doctrine? There we expected,
and always used to find, real English; a little rough and strong
sometimes, like the flavor of a wild grape, but for all that none
the less welcome. But even a day or two ago was there not an
article, signed, alas! " II. G.," in which it was said that the insurgent slaveholders when they determined to destroy the Republic " at once inaugurated the robbery of forts, arsenals, armories,
custom-houses, and mints," and that " they had consummated at




THE DESUL TORY READER.                  107
the narrative, will become deleterious mental food
if consumed straight through without variety.  It
will be well to relieve it occasionally with a little
Boston's Fourfold State, or Hervey's Meditations,
or Sturm's Reflections for Every Day in the Year,
or Don Juan, or Ward's History of Stoke-uponTrent.'
Isaac D'Israeli says, "Mr. Maurice, in his animated memoirs, has recently acquainted us with a
least a hundred of these gigantic thefts"! How are the mighty
fallen! Why not, began the robbery, and committed the theft?
Let consummate and inaugurate, except as specific terms, go
with superinduce and ovation, and all their kin, into the company in which fire is called the devouring element, a drunkard,
an inebriate, and a nation, a nationality. -W.]
1 [Add to these General Butler's orders and official correspondence at New Orleans, which, for hitting the nail square upon the
head, and clinching it with a twist of humor, have not been surpassed by any writing of their kind. By reading them, the
man weary with the weight of the grand style or fretted with
the flippancy of the familiar may obtain real mental refreshm.ent. At the same time he cannot but admire the sagacity
which contrived the measures which they announced, and the
true benevolence of their purpose.  Rarely has a man been
placed in such trying circumstances as those in which General
Butler found himself placed by the capture of New Orleans. Still
more rarely has a mlan so placed administered affairs so wisely:
-so wisely and so firmly that in that city, the most disorderly
and dangerous place in the country in ordinary times, there has
been such quiet and order since he settled himself well in power,
(as I have been told by foreigners who came from there,) that a
woman might walk at night from one end of the town to another, with a treasure in her keeping, without fear of molestation;-and this with the place in possession of a conquering
army! To be sure, General Butler knew his men; and so they
share his honor. - V.]




108               HIS FUNCTIONS.
fact which may be deemed important in the life of
a literary man.  He tells us,' We have been just
informed  that Sir William  Jones invariably read
through every year the works of Cicero.'"   What
a task! one would be curious to know whether he
felt it less heavy  in  the twelve duodecimos of
Elzevir, or the nine quartos of the Geneva edition.
Did he take to it doggedly, as Dr. Johnson says,
and read straight through according to the editor's
arrangement, or did lie pick out the plums and take
the dismal work afterwards?  For the first year or
two of his task, lie is not to be pitied perhaps about
the Offices, or the dialogue on Friendship, or
Scipio's Dream, or even the capital speeches against
Verres and Catiline; but those tiresome letters, and
the Tusculan Questions, and the De Natura! 1 It is
a pity he did not live till Angelo Mai found the De
Republica. What disappointed every one else might
perhaps have commanded  the admiration  of the
great orientalist.
But here follows, on the samle authority, a more
wonderful performance still. " The famous Bourda1 [I venture to put in a plea for the exemption of the Tuseulan Questions from this censure. They are not high and mighty,
or soaring, or profound, or even dramatic, like the Platonic dialogues, from the prolixity and occasional childish simplicity of
which, however, they are free. But they treat of great topics
with such simplicity and clearness, and in such a spirit of candid
inquiry, and do this in such elegant Latin, that it seems to me
that a man might read them occasionally with great pleasure.
Such at least is the impression left upon my memory by a book
which I have not seen since my first college year. - W.]




THE DESULTORY READER.             109
loue reperused every year St. Paul, St. Chrysostom,
and Cicero."l  The sacred author makes but a
slight addition to the bulk, but the works of St.
Chrysostom are entombed in eleven folios! Bourdalone died at the age of seventy-two; and if he began his task at the age of twenty-two, he must
have done it over fifty times. It requires nerves of
more than ordinary strength to contemplate such a
statement with equanimity. The tortures of the
classic Hades, and the disgusting inflictions courted
by the anchorites of old and the Brahmins of later
times, do not approach the horrors of such an act of
self-torture.
Of course any one ambitious of enlightening the
world on either the political or the literary history
of Rome at the commencement of the empire, must
be as thoroughly acquainted with every word of
Cicero as the writer of the Times leader on a critical debate is with the newly delivered speeches.
The more fortunate vagabond reader, too, lounging
about among the Letters, will open many little
veins of curious contemporary history and biography, which le can follow up in Tacitus, Sallust,
Caesar, and the contemporary poets.  Both are utterly different from the stated-task reader, who has
come under a vow to work so many hours or get
through so many pages in a given time.  They are
drawn by their occupation, whether work or play;
he drives himself to his. All such work is inflic1 Curiosities of Literature, iii. 339,




110             HIS FUNCTIONS.
tion, varying from the highest point of martyrdom
down to tasteless drudgery; and it is as profitless
as other supererogatory inflictions, since the taskreader comes to look at his words without following
out what they suggest, or even absorbing their
grammatical sense, much as the stupid ascetics of
old went through their penitential readings, or as
their representatives of the present day, chiefly of
the female sex, read'; screeds of good books,"
which they have not "' the presumption " to understand.  The literary Bohemian is sometimes to be
pitied when his facility of character exposes him to
have a modification of this infliction forced upon
him.  This will occur when he happens to be living
in a house frequented by "a good reader," who
solemnly devotes certain hours to the perusal of
passages from the English or French classics for
the benefit of the company, and makes himself
the mortal enemy of every guest who absents
himself.1
As to collectors, it is quite true that they do not
in general read their books successively straight
through, and the practice of desultory reading, as
it is sometimes termed, must be treated as part of
their case, and if a failing, one cognate with their
habit of collecting. They are notoriously addicted
to the practice of standing arrested on some round
of a ladder, where, having mounted up for some
certain book, they have by wayward chance fallen
1 [And often gains a mortal though secret enemy in every
guest who comes and stays.- W.]




THE DESULTORY READER.           11l
upon another, in which, at the first opening, has
come up a passage which fascinates the finder as
the eye of the Ancient Mariner fascinated the
wedding-guest, and compels him to stand there
poised on his uneasy perch and read. Peradventure the matter so perused suggests another passage in some other volume which it will be satisfactory and interesting to find, and so another and
another search is made, while the hours pass by
unnoticed, and the day seems all too short for
the pursuit which is a luxury and an enjoyment,
at the same time that it fills the mind with varied
knowledge and wisdom.
The fact is that the book-hunter, if he be genuine, and have his heart in his pursuit, is also a
reader and a scholar.  Though he may be more
or less peculiar, and even eccentric in his style
of reading, there is a necessary intellectual thread
of connection running through the objects of his
search which predicates some acquaintance with
the contents of the accumulating volumes. Even
although he profess a devotion to mere external
features- the style of binding, the cut or uncut
leaves, the presence or the absence of the gilding
-yet the department in literature holds more or
less connection with this outward sign. He who
has a passion for old editions of the classics in
vellum  bindings -  Stephenses or Aldines - will
not be put off with a copy of Robinson Crusoe
or the Ready Reckoner, bound to match and
range with the contents of his shelves.  Those




112              ITfS FUNCTIONS.
who so vehemently affect some external peculiarity are the eccentric exceptions; yet even they
have some consideration for the contents of a book
as well as for its coat.
1lye To1ttator an1  ttje  brblotar.
iHE possession, or in some other shape
the access to a far larger collection of
books than can be read throulgh  in a
i:;":~~'/  lifetime, is in fact an absolute conidition of intellectual culture and expansion.  The
library is the great intellectual stratification  in
which the literary investigator works —examining
its external features, or perhaps driving a shaft
through  its various layers — passing  over this
stratum as not immediate to his purpose, examining that other with the minute attention of microscopic investigation.  The geologist, the botanist, and the zoologist, are not content to receive
one specimen after another into their homles, to be
thoroughly and separately examined, each in succession, as novel-readers go through the volumes
of a circulating library at twopence a night
they have all the world of nature before them,
and examine as their scientific instincts or their
fancies suggest. For all inquirers, like pointers,
have a sort of instinct, sharpened by training and
practice, the power and acuteness of which aston



THiE COLLECTOR AND THE SCIOLAR.  113
ish the unlearned.  "' Reading with the fingers,"
as Basnage said of Bayle - turning the pages
rapidly over and alighting on the exact spot
where the thing wanted is to be found- is far
from a superficial faculty, as some deem it to be,
-it is the thoroughest test of active scholarship.
It was what enabled Bayle to collect so many
flowers of literature, all so interesting, and yet all
found in corners so distant and obscure. In fact,
there are subtle dexterities, acquired by sagacious
experience in searching for valuable little trinkets
in great libraries, just as in other pursuits.  A
great deal of that appearance of dry drudgery
which excites the pitying amazement of the bystander is nimbly evaded.  People acquire a sort
of instinct, picking the valuables out of the useless verbiage or the passages repeated from former
authors. It is soon found what a great deal of literature has been the mere "pouring out of one
bottle into another," as the Anatomist of Melancholy terms it.  There are those terrible folios of
the scholastic divines, the civilians, and the canonists, their majestic stream of central print overflowing into rivulets of marginal notes sedgy with
citations. Compared with these, all the intellectual
efforts of our recent degenerate days seem the work
of pigmies; and for any of us even to profess to
read all that some of those indomitable giants
wrote, would seem an audacious undertaking. But,
in fact, they were to a great extent solemn shams,
since the bulk of their work was merely that of
8




114            HIS FUNCTIONS.
the clerk who copies page after page from other
people's writings.
Surely these laborious old writers exhibited in
this matter the perfection of literary modesty. Far
from secretly pilfering, like the modern plagiarist,
it was their great boast that they themselves had
not suggested the great thought or struck out the
brilliant metaphor, but that it had been done by
some one of old, and was found in its legitimate
place —a book. I believe that if one of these
laborious persons hatched a good idea of his own,
he could experience no peace of mind until he
found it legitimated by having passed through an
earlier brain; and that the author who failed thus
to establish a paternity for his thought would sometimes audaciously set down some great name in his
crowded margin, in the hope that the imposition
might pass undiscovered.  Authorities, of course,.enjoy priority according to their rank in literature.
First come Aristotle and Plato, with the other great
classical ancients; next the primitive fathers; then
Abailard, Erigena, Peter Lombard, Ramus, Major,
and the like. If the matter be jurisprudence, we
shall have Marcianus, Papinianus, Ulpianus, Hermogenianus, and Tryphonius to begin with; and
shall then pass through the straits of Bartolus and
Baldus, on to Zuichenlus, Sanchez, Brissonius, Ritterhusius, and Gothofridus.  If all these say the
same thing, each of the others copying it from the
first who uttered it, so much the more valuable to
the literary world is deemed the idea that has been




THE COLLECTOR AND THE SCHOLAR. 115
so amply backed - it is like a vote by a great majority, or a strongly signed petition. There is only
one quarter in which this practice appears to be followed at the present day -  the composition, or the
compilation, as it may better be termed, of English
law-books.  Having selected a department to be
expounded, the first point is to set down all that
Coke said about it two centuries and a half ago,
and all that Blackstone said about it a century ago,
with passages in due subordination from  inferior
authorities.   To these are added  the rubrics of
some later cases, and a title-page and index, and
so a new  "'authority" is added to the array on
the shelves of the practitioner.
Whoever is weil up to such repetitions has many
short cuts through literature to enable him to find
the scattered originalities of which he may be in
search.  Whether he be the enthusiastic investigator resolved on exhausting any great question,
or be a mere wayward potterer, picking up curiosities by the way for his own private intellectual
museum, the larger the collection at his disposal
the better —it cannot be too great.'  No  one,
1 I am quite aware that the authorities to the contrary are so
high as to make these sentiments partake of heresy, if not a sort
of classical profanity.
"Studiorum quoque, quae liberalissima impensa est, tamdiu
rationem habet, quamdiu modum. Quo innumerabiles libros
et bibliothecas, quarum dnominus vix tota vita indices perlegit?
Onerat discentem turba, non instruit: multoque satius est paucis
te auctoribus tradere, quamn errare per multos.  Quadraginta
milia librorum Alexandria arserunt: pulcherrimum regive opu



116                HIS FUNCTIONS.
therefore, can be an ardent follower of such a
pursuit without having  his own  library.   And
yet it is probably among those whose stock is the
largest that we shall find the most frequent visitors to the British Museum  and the State Paper
Office; perhaps, for what cannot be found even
there, to  the  Imperial Library  at Paris, or the
collections of some of the German universities.
lentiae monumentum alius laudaverit, sicut et Livius, qui elegantire regum curseque egregium id opus ait fuisse. Non fuit
elegantia illud aut cura, sed studiosa luxuria.  Immo ne studiosa quidem: quoniam non in studium, sed in spectaculum comparaverant: sicut plerisque, ignaris etiam servilium literarum
libri non studiorum  instrumenta, sed coenationum ornamenta
sunt. Paretur itaque librorum quantum satis sit, nihil in apparatum. Honestius, inquis, hoc te impensae, quam in Corinthia
pictasque tabulas effuderint. Vitiosum est ubique, quod nimium est. Quid habes, cur ignoscas homini armaria citro atque
ebore captanti, corpora conquirenti aut ignotorum auctorum aut
improbatorum, et inter tot milia librorum oscitanti, cui voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent titulique? Apud desidiosissimos ergo videbis quicquid orationum historiarumque est,
tecto tenus exstructa loculamenta; jam enim inter balnearia et
thermas bibliotheca quoque ut necessarium donlus ornamentum
expolitur. Ignoscerem plane, si studiorum nimia cupidine oriretur: nunc ista conquisita, cum imaginibus suis descripta et
sacrorum opera ingeniorum in speciem et culturm parietum comparantur." — Seneca, De Tranquillitate, c. ix.
There are some good hits here, which would tell at the present
day. Seneca is reported to have had a large library; it is certain that he possessed and fully enjoyed enormous wealth; and
it is amusing to find this commendation of literary moderation
following on a well-known passage in praise of parsimonious
living, and of the good example set by Diogenes. Modern
scepticism about the practical stoicism of the ancients is surely
brought to a climax by a living writer, M. Fournier, who maintains that the so-called tub of Diogenes was in reality a commo



THE COLLECTOR AND THE SCHOLAR. 117
To every man of our Saxon race endowed with
full health and strength, there is committed, as if it
were the price he pays for these blessings, the custody of a restless demon, for which he is doomed to
find ceaseless excitement, either in honest work, or
some less profitable or more mischievous occupation.1
Countless have been the projects devised by the wit
of man to open up for this fiend fields of exertion
dious little dwelling - neat but not gorgeous. It must be supposed, then, that he spoke of his tub much as an English country gentleman does of his "box."
1 [The writer here falls into an error which all the more demands correction because it is so common. Our race is constantly spoken of, on this side of the water no less than on the
other, as the Anglo-Saxon race. If there ever was a race entitled
to that ambiguous name, it had disappeared before the Conquest.
The people whom William conquered were Englishmen; and
they were called Englishmen and their country was called England because it was the land of the English, as France was called
France because it was the land of the:Franks. Tilhe conduct of
many of our brethren in the old home has caused most of us
here to shrink from the name of English men, even those who
glory that they were born and bred in New England; and our
pride of race takes refuge in our so-called Anglo-Saxonism.
The name American, so generally given to us, and so generally
accepted, is most poor and unmeaning. It applies equally, and
with nuch more propriety, to the Esquimaux and the Patagonians. It is as if the Italians or the Swedes were to be called
simply Europeans. The people of this country are to all intents
and purposes as surely English people as they were when in the
century 1600 they were called "American Englishmen," or
when in the next century our grandfathers and great-grandfathers commenced the movement which ended in our separate
political existence by claiming, in specific terms, from the British
Government their "rights as Englishmen." The mixture of
foreign elements has been proportionally little greater here than
in England. Here it has been Irish and German, there Irish




118               HIS FUNCTIONS.
great enough for the absorption of its tireless energies; and none of them is more hopeful than the
great world of books, if the demon is docile enough
and Scotch. In both cases, however, there is an immediate
absorption. In the second generation, the Irishman, the Scotchman, and the German disappears, and in his place is an Englishman.
The "restless demon " of work came over the sea with the
race; and that he is more active here than in his original abode
(as all the world says) is because he is free here from the artificial restraints which there clog his movements and thwart his
purposes.  It is this hereditary disposition of every man to
work, and the ability of every man to work here as he wishes
to work, that has enabled us to bear and to thrive under the
enormous burdens of the present war, which, though grown
threefold greater than they were expected to be when the political economists of Europe, and particularly of Great Britain,
predicted our reduction to beggary and consequent anarchy,
have not been able to seriously impede our prosperity, or even
our expenditure for foreign productions. Wise politicians and
able editors abroad, when they make calculations in regard to
us, must take into account our good demon, and leave out the
spell from which he freed himself when he crossed the water.
- Singularly opportune, just as I am about to send this note
to press, the " Saturday Review " of October 4th arrives, in the
third article of which there is this characteristic sentence:" The Americans in the noonday light of history have invented for themselves an imaginary pedigree under the blundering nickname of the great Anglo-Saxon race."  This is
about as near truth or courtesy as the " Saturday Review " can
get when speaking of anything or any person in this country,
except a slaveholding rebel against an unviolated constitutional
government. But, as we have seen, the " blundering nickname "
was not invented here, or specially for us, but in England, and
for all English people, whether subjects of Great Britain or citizens of the United States. For the latter, however, the " Saturday Review" would prefer Mr. Roebuck's courteous and decorous designation. -  V.]




.:IE COLLECTOR AND THE SCHOLAR.  119
to be coaxed into it. Then will its erratic restlessness be sobered by the immensity of the sphere of
exertion, and the consciousness that, however vehemently and however long it may struggle, the resources set before it will not be exhausted when the
life to which it is attached shall have faded away;
and hence, instead of dreading the languor of inaction, it will have to summon all its resources of
promptness and activity to get over any considerable
portion of the ground within the short space allotted
to the life of man.
That the night cometh when no man can work,
haunts those who have gone so far in their investigations, and draws their entire energies into
their pursuit with an exclusiveness which astonishes
the rest of the world. But the energies might be
more unfitly directed. Look back, for instanceno great distance back - on the great high-priest of
our national school of logic and metaphysics, - he
who gathered up its' divers rays, and, helping them
with light from all other sources of human knowledge, concentrated the whole into one powerful
focus. No one could look at the massive brow, the
large, full, lustrous eyes, the firm compressed lip,
without seeing that the demon of energy was powerful within him, and had it not found work in the.
conquest of all human learning, must have sought it
elsewhere. You see in him the nature that must
follow up all inquiries, not by languid solicitation
but hot pursuit. His conquests as he goes are rapid,.
but complete. Summing up the thousands upon




120                HIS FUNCTIONS.
thousands of volumes, upon all matters of human
study and in many languages, which he has passed
through his hands, you think he has merely dipped
into them or skimmed them, or in some other shape
put them  to superficial use.  You are wrong: he
has found his way at once to the very heart of the
living matter of each one; between it and him  there
are henceforth no secrets.1
Descending, however, from  so high a sphere, we
1 How a nature endowed with powerful impulses like these
might be led along with them into a totally different groove,
I am reminded by a traditionary anecdote of student life. A
couple of college chums are under the impression that their
motions are watched by an inquisitive tutor, who for the occasion may be called Dr. Fusby. They become both exceeding
wroth, and the more daring of the two engages on the first
opportunity to " settle the fellow."  They are occupied in
ardent colloquy, whether on the predicates or other matters it
imports not, when a sudden pause in the conversation enables
them to be aware that there is a human being breathing close
on the other side of the "oak." The light is extinguished, the
door opened, and a terrific blow from a strong and scientifically
levelled fist hurls the listener down-stairs to the next landingplace, from which resting-place he hears thundered after him
for his information, "If you come back again, you scoundrel,
I'll put you into the hands of Dr. Fusby."  From that source,
however, no one had much to dread for some considerable
period, during which the Doctor was confined to his bedroom
by serious indisposition. It refreshed the recollection of this
anecdote, years after I had heard it, and many years after the
date attributed to it, to have seen a dignified scholar make what
appeared to me an infinitesimally narrow escape from sharing
the fate of Dr. Fusby, having indeed just escaped it by satisfactorily proving to a hasty philosopher that he was not the
party guilty of keeping a certain copy of Occarn on the sentences of Peter Lombard out of his reach.




THE COLLECTOR AND THE SCHOLAR.  121
shall find that the collector and the scholar are so
closely connected with each other that it is difficult
to draw the line of separation between them. As
dynamic philosophers say, they act and react on
each other. The possession of certain books has
made men acquainted with certain pieces of knowledge which they would not otherwise have acquired.
It is, in fact, one of the amiable weaknesses of the
set, to take a luxurious glance at a new acquisition.
It is an outcropping of what remains in the man, of
the affection towards a new toy that flourished in
the heart of the boy.  Whether the right reverend
or right honourable Thomas has ever taken his newbought Baskerville to bed with him, as the Tommy
that was has taken his humming-top, is a sort of
case which has not actually come under observation
in the course of my own clinical inquiries into the
malady; but I am not prepared to state that it
never occurred, and can attest many instances where
the recent purchase has kept the owner from bed
far on in the night. In this incidental manner is
a general notion sometimes formed of the true object and tenor of a book, which is retained in the
mind, stored for use, and capable of being refreshed
and strengthened whenever it is wanted.  In the
skirmish for the Caxtons, which began the serious
work in the great conflict of the Roxburghe sale,
it was satisfactory to find, as I have already stated,
on the authority of the great historian of the war,
that Earl Spencer, the victor, "put each volume
under his coat, and walked home with them in all




122               HIS FUNCTIONS.
the flush of victory and consciousness of triumph." I
Ere next morning he would know a good deal more
about the contents of the volumes than he did before.
lje  Crleantr anb I)jis   artest.,?-.c   HERE   are  sometimes  agreeable and
l~:,._~o  sometimes disappointing surprises in en/ll,2   countering the interiors of books.  The... title-page is not always a distinct intimation of what is to follow.  Whoever dips into
the Novellve of Leo, or the Extravagantes, as edited
by Gothofridus, will not find either of them  to
contain matter of a light, airy, and amusing kind.
Dire have been the disappointments incurred by
the Diversions of Purley - one of the toughest
books in existence.  It has even cast a shade over
one of our best story-books, The Diversions of
Hollycot, by the late Mrs. Johnston.  The great
scholar, Leo Allatius, who broke his heart when
he lost the special pen with which he wrote during
forty years, published a work called Apes Urbanm
- Urban Bees. It is a biographical work, devoted
1 In the article in Blackwood, the author, from a vitiated
reminiscence, made the unpardonable blunder of attributing this
touching trait of nature to the noble purchaser of the Valderfaer
Boccaccio. For tliis, as not only a mistake, but in some measure an imputation on the tailor who could have made for his
lordship pockets of dimensions so abnormal, I received due
castigation from an eminent practical man in the book-hunter's
field.




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  123
to the great men who flourished during the Pontificate of Urban VIII., whose family carried bees on
their coat-armorial. The History of New York,
by Diedrich Knickerbocker, has sorely perplexed
certain strong-minded women, who read nothing
but genuine history.  The book which, in the
English translation, goes by the name of Marmontel's Moral Tales, has been found to give disappointment to parents in search of the absolutely
correct and improving; and Edgeworth's Essay
on Irish Bulls has been counted money absolutely
thrown away by eminent breeders.  There is a
sober-looking volume, generally bound in sheep,
called MacEwen on the Types - a theological
book, in fact, treating of the types of Christianity
in the old law. Concerning it, a friend once told
me that, at an auction, he had seen it vehemently
competed for by an acute-looking citizen artisan
and a burly farmer from the hills. The latter, the
successful party, tossed the lot to the other, who
might have it and be d ~d to it, he " thought it
was a buik upo' the tups," a word which, it may
be necessary to inform the unlearned reader, means
rams: but the other competitor also declined the
lot; he was a compositor or journeyman printer,
and expected to find the book honestly devoted to
those tools of his trade of which it professed to treat.
Mr. Ruskin, having formed the pleasant little original design of abolishing the difference between Popery and Protestantism, through the persuasive influence of his own special eloquence, set forth his




124            HIS FUNCTIONS.
views upon the matter in a book which he termed
a treatise " on the construction of sheepfolds." I
have been informed that this work had a considerable run among the muirland farmers, whose reception of it was not flattering.
Logic has not succeeded as yet in discovering the
means of framing a title-page which shall be exhaustive, as it is termed, and constitute an infallible
finger-post to the nature of a book.  From the beginning of all literature, it may be said that man
has been continually struggling after this achievement, and struggling in vain; and it is a humiliating fact, that the greatest adepts, abandoning the
effort in despair, have taken refuge in some fortuitous word, which has served their purpose better
than the best results of their logical analysis.  The
book which has been the supreme ruler of the intellect in this kind of work stands forth as an illustrious example of failure. To those writings of
Aristotle which dealt with mind, his editing pupils
could give no name, - therefore they called them
the things after the physics - the metapliysies;
and that fortuitous title the great arena of thought
to which they refer still bears, despite of efforts to
supply an apter designation in such words as Psychology, Pneumatology, and Transcendentalism.
Writhing under this nightmare kind of difficulty,
men in later times tried to achieve completeness by
lengthening the title-page; but they found that the
longer they made it, the more it wriggled itself into
devious tracks, and the farther did they depart from




THE GLEANER AND HIS HIARVEST.  125
a comprehensive name. Some title-pages in old
folios make about half an hour's reading.1 One
advantage, however, was found in these lengthy
titles - they afforded to controversialists a means of
condensing the pith of their malignity towards each
other, and throwing it, as it were, right in the face
of the adversary. It will thus often happen that
the controversialist states his case first in the titlepage; he then gives it at greater length in the introduction; again, perhaps, in a preface; a third
time in an analytical form, through means of a table
of contents; after all this skirmishing, he brings up
his heavy columns in the body of the book; and if
he be very skilful, he may let fly a few Parthian
arrows from the index.
It is a remarkable thing that a man should have
been imprisoned, and had his ears cut off, and become one of the chief causes of our great civil wars,
all along of an unfortunate word or two in the last
1A good modern specimen of a lengthy title-page may be
found in one of the books appropriate to the matter in hand, by
the diligent French bibliographer Peignot:"DICTIONNAIRE RAISONNE DE BIBLIOLOGIE: contenantlmo, L'explication des principaux termes relatifs ia la bibliographie, a l'art typographique, i la diplomatique, aux langues,
aux archives, aux manuscrits, aux m6dailles, aux antiquitis,
&c.; 2do, Des notices historiques ddtaillees sur les principales
bibliothleques anciennes et modernes; sur les differentes sectes
philosophiques; sur les plus cl~ebres imprimeurs, avec un indication des meilleures dditions sorties de leurs presses; et sur les
bibliographes, avec la liste de leurs ouvrages; 3tio, enfin, L'exposition des diffirentes systemes biliographiques, &c., - ouvrage
utile aux biblioth6caires, archivistes, imprimeurs, &c." Paris,
1802.




126            HIlS FUNCT1ONS.
page of a book containing more than a thousand.
It was as far down in his very index as W that the
great offence in Prynne's Histrio Mastyx was found,
under the head "Women actors." The words which
follow are rather unquotable in this nineteenth century; but it was a very odd compliment to Queen
Henrietta Maria to presume that these words must
refer to her - something like Hugo's sarcasm that,
when the Parisian police overhear any one use the
terms " ruffian " and " scoundrel," they say, " You
must be speaking of the Emperor." The Histrio
Mastyx was, in fact, so big and so complex a thicket
of confusion, that it had been licensed without examination by the licenser, who perhaps trusted that
the world would have as little inclination to peruse
it as he had. The calamitous discovery of the sting
in the tail must surely have been made by a Hebrew
or an Oriental student, who mechanically looked for
the commencement of the Histrio Mastyx where he
would have looked for that of a Hebrew Bible.
Successive licensers had given the work a sort of
go-by, but, reversing the order of the sibylline books,
it became always larger and larger, until it found a
licenser who, with the notion that he'" must put a
stop to this," passed it without examination.  It
got a good deal of reading immediately afterwards,
especially from Attorney-General Noy, who asked
the Star-Chamber what it had to do with the immorality of stage-plays to exclaim that church-music
is not the noise of men, but rather h" a bleating of
brute beasts -choristers bellow the tenor as it were




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  127
oxen, bark a counterpoint as a kennel of dogs, roar
out a treble like a set of bulls, grunt out a bass as
it were a number of hogs."  But Mr. Attorney took
surely a more nice distinction when he made a
charge against the author in these terms: "All
stage-players he terms them rogues: in this he doth
falsify the very Act of Parliament; for unless they
go abroad, they are not rogues."
In the very difficulties in the way of framing a
conclusive and exhaustive title, there is a principle
of compensation. It clears literature of walls and
hedgerows, and makes it a sort of free forest. To
the desultory reader, not following up any special
inquiry, there are delights in store in a devious rummage through miscellaneous volumes, as there are to
the lovers of adventure and the picturesque in any
district of country not desecrated by the tourist's
guide-books.  Many readers will remember the
pleasant little narrative appended to Croker's edition of Boswell, of Johnson's talk at Cambridge
with that extensive book-hunter, Dr. Richard Farmer, who boasted of the possession of I" plenty of all
such reading as was never read," and scandalized
his visitor by quoting from  Markham's Book of
Armorie a passage applying the technicalities of
heraldry and genealogy to the most sacred mystery
of Christianity.  One who has not tried it, may
form an estimate of this kind of pursuit from
Charles Lamb's Specimens from  the Writings of
Fuller. No doubt, as thus transplanted, these have
not the same fresh relish which they have for the




128            HIS FUNCTIONS.
wanderer who finds them  in their own native
wilderness; but, like the specimens in a conservatory or a museum, they are examples of what may
be found in the place they have come from. I am
here tempted to relieve this desultory prattle by
offering to the reader a passage or two from some
old author, not exactly in the regular beat of our
"English classics;" and I shall take Sir Thomas
Browne. Whether the reader is already acquainted
with them or not, I am sure that he will enjoy the
beauty of the thoughts and the mellowed sweetness
of the style. In the first, the author relieves his
mind about his fellow-Christians of the Romish
persuasion.
The Esthetics of Toleration.
6" We have reformed from them, not against
them; for, omitting those improprieties and terms
of scurrility betwixt us, which only difference our
affections and not our cause, there is between us
one common name and appellation, one faith and
necessary body of principles common to us both;
and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse and
live with them, to enter their churches in defect of
ours, and either pray with them or for them. I
could never perceive any rational consequence from
those many texts which prohibit the children of
Israel to pollute themselves with the temples of the
heathens; we being all Christians, and not divided
by such detested impieties as might profane our
prayers, or the place wherein we make them; or




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.   129
that a resolved conscience may not adore her Creator anywhere, especially in places devoted to his
service; where, if their devotions offend him, nine
may please him, if theirs profane it, mine may hallow it. Holy water and crucifix (dangerous to
the common people) deceive not my judgment, nor
abuse my devotion at all. I am, I confess, naturally inclined to that which misguided zeal terms superstition: my common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigour, sometimes
not without morosity; yet at my devotion I love to
use the civility of my knee, my hat, and hand,
with all those outward and sensible motions which
may express or promote my invisible devotion. I
should violate my own arm rather than a church,
nor willingly deface the name of saint or martyr.
At the sight of a cross or crucifix I can dispense
with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour. I cannot laugh at, but rather
pity the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or conternn
the miserable condition of friars; for though misplaced in circumstances, there is something in it of
devotion. I could never hear the Ave Maria bell
without an elevation; or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for
me to err in all -- that is, in silence and dumb contempt. Whilst, therefore, they directed their devotions to her, I offered mine to God, and rectified
the errors of their prayers by rightly ordering mine
own. At a solemn procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts, blind with opposition
9




130           HIS FUNCTIONS.
and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn
and laughter.  There are, questionless, both in
Greek, Roman, and African churches, solemnities
and ceremonies whereof the wiser zealots do make
a Christian use; and stand condemned by us, not
as evil in themselves, but as allurements and baits
of superstition to those vulgar heads that look
asquint on the face of truth, and those unstable
judgments that cannot consist in the narrow point
and center of virtue, without a reel or stagger to
the circumference."
Disputation.
"I could never divide myself from any man upon
the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his
judgment for not agreeing with me in that from
which, perhaps, within a few days I should dissent
myself. I have no genius to disputes in religion,
and have often thought it wisdom to decline them,
especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause
of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where we desire to be informed,'tis good to
contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm
and establish our opinions,'tis best to argue with
judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils
and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.
Every man is not a proper champion for truth,
- not fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of
verity.  Many, from the ignorance of these maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal unto truth, have




THE GLEANER AND HIS HAR VEST.   131
too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain
as trophies unto the enemies of truth. A man may
be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and
yet be forced to surrender;'tis therefore far better
to enjoy her with peace than to hazard her on a
battle. If, therefore, there arise any doubts in my
way, I do forget them, or at least defer them, till'
my better-settled judgment and more manly reason
be able to resolve themn; for I perceive every man's.
own reason is his best CEdipus, and will, upon a,
reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds.
wherewith the subtilties of error have enchained.
our more flexible and tender judgments."
Tlze Hcarmony of Nature.
"'Natura nihil agit firustra,' is the only indisputable axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesk in
nature, nor anything framed to fill up empty cantons and unnecessary spaces.  In the most imperfect creatures, and such as were not preserved in
the ark - but, having their seeds and principles in
the womb of nature, are everywhere where the
power of the sun is - in these is the wisdom of his
hand discovered; out of this rank Solomon chose
the object of his admiration. Indeed what reason
may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants,
and spiders?  What wise hand teacheth them to
do what reason cannot teach us? Ruder heads
stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature,
whales, elephants, dromedaries and camels, —theses
I confess, are the colossus and majestick pieces of




132            HIS FUNCTIONS.
her hand; but in these narrow engines there are
more curious mathematicks, and the civility of
these little citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of their maker. Who admires Regiomontanus
his fly beyond his eagle, or wonders not more at
the operation of two souls in those little bodies,
than but one in the trunk of a cedar?  I could
never content my contemplation with those general
pieces of wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea,
the increase of the Nile, the conversion of the
needle to the north; and have studied to match
and parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of nature, which without further travel
I can do in the cosmography of myself. We carry
with us the wonders we seek without us: there is.all Africa and her prodigies in us. We are that
bold and adventurous piece of nature which he that,studies wisely learns in a compendium, and which
-others labour at in a divided piece and endless,volume.
"Thus there are two books from whence I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God,
another of his servant nature, that universal and
publick manuscript, that lies expended unto the eyes.of all. Those that never saw him in the one, have
discovered him in the other.  This was the scripture and theology of the heathens.  The natural
motion of the sun made them more admire him than
its supernatural station did the children of Israel;
the ordinary effect of nature wrought more admiration in them than in the other all his miracles.




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  133
Surely the heathens knew better how to join and
read these mystical letters than we Christians, who
cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyplicks, and disdain to suck divinity from  the
flowers of nature."
The Jhstication of Martyrdom.
"Now as all that die in war are not termed
soldiers, so neither can I properly term all those
that suffer in matters of religion martyrs.  The
Council of Constance condemns John Huss for an
heretick, the stories of his own party stile him a
martyr: he must needs offend the divinity of both,
who says he was neither the one nor the other.
Tlhere are many, questionless, canonised on earth,
who shall never be saints in heaven; and have
their names in histories and martyrologies, who,
in the eyes of God are not so perfect martyrs as
was that wise heathen, Socrates, who suffered on
a fundamental point of religion, the unity of God.
I have often pitied the miserable bishop who suffered in the cause of antipodes, yet cannot chuse
but accuse him of as much madness, for exposing
his life on such a trifle, as those of ignorance and
folly who condemned him.  I think my conscience
would not give me the lie, if I say there are not
many extant who, in a noble way, fear the face of
death less than myself; yet, from the moral duty
I owe to the commandment of God, and the natural:
respects that I tender unto the conservation of my'
essence and being, I would not perish upon a cere



134            HIS FUNCTIONS.
mony, politick points, or indifferency; nor is my
belief of that untractable temper as not to bow at
their obstacles, or connive at matters wherein there
are not manifest impieties. The leaven, therefore,
and ferment of all, not only civil but religious actions, is wisdom; without which, to commit ourselves to the flames is homicide, and (I fear) but
to pass through one fire into another." 1
Ashes of the Unknown Dead.
"Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an
art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these
minor monuments. In vain we hope to be known
by open and visible conservatories, when to be unknown was the means of their continuation, and
obscurity their protection. If they died by violent
hands, and were thrust into their urns, these bones
become considerable; and some old philosophers
would honour them, whose souls they conceived
most pure which were thus snatched from  their
bodies, and to retain a stronger propension unto
them; whereas they weariedly left a languishing
corpse, and with faint desires of reunion, if they
fell by long and aged decay. Yet, wrapt up in the
bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and
make but one blot with infants...  What:song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles as-:sumed when he hid himself among women, though
puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
What time the persons of these assuaries entered
1 From the Religio Medici.




THE GLEANER AND HIlS HARVEST.   135
the famous nations of the dead, and slept with
princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietors of these bones,
or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question
above antiquarism - not to be resolved by men, nor
easily, perhaps, by spirits, except we consult the
provincial guardians or tutelary observators. Had
they made as good provision for their names as they
have done for their reliques, they had not so grossly
erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in
bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy
in duration. Vain ashes! which, in the oblivion of
names, persons, times, and sexes, have found unto
themselves a fruitless continuation, and only arise
unto late posterity as emblems of mortal vanities,
antidotes against pride, vainglory, and madding
vices." 1
But there are passages worth finding in books
less promising than the works of Browne or Fuller.
Those who potter in libraries, especially if they
have courage to meddle with big volumes, sometimes find curious things —for all gems are not
collected in caskets.  In searching through the
solid pages of Hatsell's Precedents in Parliament
for something one doesn't find, it is some consolation to alight on such a precedent as the following,
set forth as likely to throw light on the mysterious
process called " naming a member."' A  story
used to be told of Mr. Onslow, which those who
1 From the Hydriotaphia.




136               HIS FUNCTIONS.
ridiculed his strict observance of forms were fond
of repeating, that as he often, upon a member's
not attending to him, but persisting in any disorder,
threatened to name him —' Sir, sir, I must name
you'-on being asked what would be the consequence of putting that threat in execution and
naming a member, he answered,' The Lord in
heaven knows.'"'
In the perusal of a very solid book on the progress
of the ecclesiastical differences of Ireland, written
by a native of that country, after a good deal of
tedious and vexatious matter, the reader's complacency is restored by an artless statement how an
eminent person " abandoned the errors of the Church
of Rome, and adopted those of the Church of England."
So also a note I have preserved of a brief passage
descriptive of the happy conclusion of a duel runs
thus  -
" The one party received a slight wound in the
breast; the other fired in the air -  and so the matter terminated." 1
1 This passage has been quoted and read by many people
quite unconscious of the arrant bull it contains. There could
be no better testimony to its being endowed with the subtle
spirit of the genuine article. Irish bulls, as Burke said of constitutions, "are not made — they grow," and that only in their
own native soil.  Those manufactured for the stage and the
anecdote-books betray their artificial origin in their breadth and
obviousness. The real bull carries one with it at first by an imperceptible confusion and misplacement of ideas in the mind
where it has arisen, and it is not until you reason back that you
see it. Horace Walpole used to say that the best of all bulls,




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST. 137
Professional law-books and reports are not generally esteemed as light reading, yet something may
be made even of them  at a pinch.  Menage wrote a
book upon the amenities of the civil law, which does
anything but fulfil its promise.  There are many
much better to be got in the most unlikely corners;
as, where a great authority on copyright begins a
narrative of a case in point by saying, " One Moore
had written a book which lie called Irish Melodies;"
and again, in an action of trespass on the case, " The
plaintiff stated in his declaration  that he was the
true and only proprietor of the copyright of a book
of poems entitled The Seasons, by James Thomson."   I cannot lay hands at this moment on the
index which refers to Mr. Justice Best -  he was
the man, as far as memory serves, but never mind.
from its thorough and grotesque confusion of identity, was that
of the man who complained of having been " changed at nurse; "
and perhaps he is right. An Irishman, and he only, can handle
this confusion of ideas so as to make it a more powerful instrument of repartee than the logic of another man: take, for instance, the beggar who, when imploring a dignified clergyman
for charity, was charged not to take the sacred name in vain, and
answered, " Is it in vain, then? and whose fault is that? "  I
have doubts whether the saying attributed to Sir Boyle Roche
about being in two places at once "like a bird," is the genuine
article. I happened to discover that it is of earlier date than
Sir Boyle's day, having found, when rummaging in an old house
among some Jacobite manuscripts, one from  Robertson of
Strowan, the warrior poet, in which he says about two contradictory military instructions, " It seems a difficult point for
me to put both orders in execution, unless, as the man said, I
can be in two places at once, like a bird." A few copies of these
letters were printed for the use of the Abbotsford Club. This
letter of Strowan's occurs in p. 92.




138             HIS FUNCTIONS.
A searcher after something or other, running his
eye down the index through letter B, arrived at
the reference'" Best - Mr. Justice - his great
mind." Desiring to be better acquainted with the
particulars of this assertion, he turned up the page
referred to, and there found, to his entire satisfaction, "Mr. Justice Best said he had a great mind
to commit the witness for prevarication."
The following case is curiously suggestive of the
state of the country round London in the days when
much business was done on the road: -A bill in
the Exchequer was brought by Everett against a
certain Williams, setting forth that the complainant
was skilled in dealing in certain commodities, " such
as plate, rings, watches, &c.," and that the defendant desired to enter into partnership with him.
They entered into partnership accordingly, and it
was agreed that they should provide the necessary
plant for the business of the firm - such as horses,
saddles, bridles, &c. (pistols not mentioned) - and
should participate in the expenses of the road. The
declaration then proceeds, "'And your orator and
the said Joseph Williams proceeded jointly with
good success in the said business on Hounslow
Heath, where they dealt with a gentleman for a
gold watch; and afterwards the said Joseph Williams told your orator that Finchley, in the county
of Middlesex, was a good and convenient place to
deal in, and that commodities were very plenty at
Finchley aforesaid, and it would be almost all clear
gain to them; that they went accordingly, and dealt




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.   139
with several gentlemen for divers watches, rings,
swords, canes, hats, cloaks, horses, bridles, saddles,
and other things; that about a month afterwards
the said Joseph Williams informed your orator that
there was a gentleman at Blackheath who had a
good horse, saddle, bridle, watch, sword, cane, and
other things to dispose of, which, he believed, might
be had for little or no money; that they accordingly
went, and met with the said gentleman, and, after
some small discourse, they dealt for the said horse,
&c. That your orator and the said Joseph WTilliams continued their joint dealings together in
several places- viz., at Bagshot, in Surrey; Salisbury, in Wiltshire; Hampstead, in Middlesex; and
elsewhere, to the amount of ~2000 and upwards."l
Here follows a brief extract from a law paper,
for the full understanding of which it has to be kept
in view that the pleader, being an officer of the
law, who has been prevented from  executing his
warrant by threats, requires, as a matter of form,
to swear that he was really afraid that the threats
would be carried into execution.
"' Farther depones, that the said A. B. said that
if deponent did not immediately take himself off
he would pitch him  (the deponent) down stairs
which the deponent verily believes he would have
done.
" Farther depones, that, time and place aforesaid,
1 This case has been often referred to in law-books, but I have
never met with so full a statement of the contents of the declaration as in the Retrospective Review (vol. v. p. 81).




140              HEIS FFUNCTIONS.
the said A. B. said to deponent,' If you come another step nearer I'll kick you to hell'-  which the
deponent verily believes he would have done." 1
I know not whether " lay gents," as the English
bar used to term  that portion of mankind who had
not been called to itself,2 can feel any pleasure in
wandering over the case-books, and picking up the
funny technicalities scattered over them; but I can
attest from experience that, to a person trained in
one set of technicalities, the pottering about among
those of a different parish is exceedingly exhilarating.  When one has been at work among interlocutors, suspensions, tacks, wadsets, multiplepoindings, adjudications in implement, assignations, infeftments, homologations, charges of horning, quadriennium utiles, vicious intromissions, decrees of
putting to silence, conjoint actions of declarator
and reduction-improbation - the brain, being satu1 It is curious to observe how bitter a prejudice Themis has
against her own humbler ministers. Most of the bitterest legal
jokes are at the expense of the class who have to carry the law
into effect. Take, for instance, the case of the bailiff who had
been compelled to swallow a writ, and, rushing into Lord Norbury's court to proclaim the indignity done to justice in his person, was met by the expression of a hope that the writ was " not
returnable in this court."
2 [Do members of the English bar call any people " gents "2
Do those solemn benchers, those punctilious Q. C.'s, those fearfully and wonderfully wigged judges, say " gents "? gWe who
have not had the advantage of personal observation, supposed
"gent" to be fitly given up to the use of those execrable animals who are the triumphs of John Leech's pencil, and the
butts of his gentlemen, - in short, the Tittlebat Titmice of the
English part of the British nation. - W.]




THE GLEANER AND HIS IAR VEST.  141
rated with these and their kindred, becomes refreshed by crossing the border of legal nomlenclature, and getting among common recoveries, demurrers, quare impedits, tails-male, tails-female,
docked tails, latitats, avowrys, nihil elicits, cestui
que trusts, estoppels, essoigns, darrein presentments,
emparlances, mandamuses, qui tarns, capias ad faciendums or ad withernam, and so forth. After vexatious interlocutors in which the Lord Ordinary has
refused interim interdict, but passed the bill to try
the question, reserving expenses; or has repelled
the dilatory defences, and ordered the case to the
roll for debate on the peremptory defences; or has
taken to avizandum; or has ordered re-revised condescendence and answers on the conjoint probation;
or has sisted diligence till caution be found judicio
sisti; or has done nearly all these things together
in one breath, -it is like the consolation derived
from meeting a companion in adversity, to find that
at Westminster Hall, "In  fermedon the tenant
having demanded a view after a general imparlance,
the demandant issued a writ of petit cape —held
irregular."
Also, " If, after nulla bona returned, a testatum
be entered upon the roll, quod devastavit, a writ of
inquiry shall be directed to the sheriff, and if by
inquisition the devastavit be found and returned,
there shall be a scire facias quare executio non de
propriis bonis, and if upon that the sheriff returns
scire feci, the executor or administrator may appear
and traverse the inquisition."




142               HIS FULNCTION7S.
Again, "If the record of Nisi prius be a die
Sancti Trinitatis in tres Septimlanas nisi a 27 June,
prius venerit, which is the day after the day in
Bank, which was mistaken for a die Sancti Michaelis, it shall not be amended."
It is interesting to observe, that at one end of the
island a panel means twelve perplexed agriculturists,
who, after having taken an oath to act according to
their consciences, are starved till they are of one
mind on some complicated question; while, at the
other end, the same term  applies to the criminal on
whose conduct they are going to give their verdict.
It would be difficult to decide which is the more
happy application; but it must be admitted that we
are a great way behind the South in our power of
selecting a nomenclature immeasurably distant in
meaning from  the thing signified.  We speak of a
bond instead of a mortgage, and we adjudge where
we ought to foreclose.  We have no such thing as
chattels, either personal or real.1 If you want to
1 A late venerable practitioner in a humble department of the
law, who wanted to write a book, and was recommended to try
his hand at a translation of Latin law-maxims as a thing much
wanted, was considerably puzzled with the maxim, "Catella
realis non potest legari; " nor was he quite relieved when he
turned up his Ainsworth and found that catella means "a little
puppy."  There was nothing for it, however, but obedience, so
that he had to give currency to the remarkable principle of law,
that "a genuine little whelp cannot be left in legacy." He also
translated " messis sequitur sementem," with a fine simplicity,
into "the harvest follows the seed-time;" and "actor sequitur
forum rei," he made "the agent must be in court when the case
is going on." Copies of the book containing these gems are ex



THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.   143
know  the English  law  of book-debts, you  will
have to look for it under the head of Assumpsit
in a treatise on Nisi Prius; while a lawyer of
Scotland would unblushingly use the word itself,
and put it in his index.  So, too, our bailments
are merely spoken of as bills, notes, or whatever
a merchant might call them.   Our garnishee  is
merely a common debtor.  Baron and feme we
call husband  and  wife, and  coverture  we term
marriage.1
Still, for the honor of our country, it is possible
to find a few technicalities which would do no discredit to our neighbors. Where one of' them would
bring a habeas corpus -a name felicitously expressive, according to the English method of civil liberty -  an inhabitant of the North, in the same unfortunate position, would take to running his letters.
We have no turbary, or any other easement; but,
to compensate us, we have thirlage, outsucken multures, insucken multures, and dry multures; as also
we have a sowmen and rowmen, as any one who
has been so fortunate as to hear Mr. Outram's paceedingly rare, some malicious person having put the author up
to their absurdity.
1 [This and the amusing account which follows of the many
and great variations between the Scotch and English forms of
law, which are signs of a difference at least equal in spirit, are
interesting evidence of the radical unlikeness, as well in institutions as in race, of the two peoples which form the most important elements of the British nation. No shadow of such unlikeness
exists or ever has existed in this country, except in one State, -
Louisiana. - W.]




144               HIS FUNClT[ONS.
thetic lyric on that interesting servitude, will remember in conjunction with pleasing associations.
To do the duty of a Duces Tecun we have a diligence against havers.  We have no capias ad faciendum  (abbreviated cap ad fac), nor have we the
fieri facias, familiarly termed fi fa, but we have perhaps as good in the in meditatione fugae warrant,
familiarly abbreviated into fugie, as poor Peter
Peebles termed it, when he burst in  upon  the
party assembled at Justice Foxley's, exclaiming,
"Is't here they sell the fugie warrants? "1
I am not sure but, in the very mighty heart of
all legal formality and technicality-the Statutes at
Large -  some funny things might be found.  The
best that now  occurs to the memory is not to be
brought to book, and must be given as a tradition
of the time when George III. was king.  Its tenor
is, that a bill which proposed, as the punishment of
an offence, to levy a certain pecuniary penalty, one
half thereof to go to his Majesty and the other half
1 There are two old methods of paying rent in Scotland -
Kane and Carriages; the one being rent in kind from the farmyard, the other being an obligation to furnish the landlord with
a certain amount of carriage, or rather cartage. In one of the
vexed cases of domicile, which had found its way into the House
of Lords, a Scotch lawyer argued that a landed gentleman had
shown his determination to abandon his residence in Scotland
by having given up his " kane and carriages." It is said that
the argument went further than he expected- the English lawyers admitting that it was indeed very strong evidence of an
intended change of domicile when the laird not only ceased
to keep a carriage, but actually divested himself of his walkingcane.




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  145
to the informer, was altered in committee, in so far
that, when it appeared in the form of an act, the
punishment was changed to whipping and imprisonment, the destination being left unaltered.
It is wonderful that such mistakes are not of
frequent occurrence when one remembers the hot
hasty work often done by committees, and the complex entanglements of sentences on which they have
to work. Bentham was at the trouble of counting
the words in one sentence of an Act of Parliament,,
and found that, beginning with " Whereas " and
ending with the word 1" repealed," it was precisely
the length of an ordinary three-volume novel.  To
offer the reader that sentence on the present occasion would be rather a heavy jest, and as little
reasonable as the revenge offered to a village schoolmaster who, having complained that the whole of
his little treatise on the Differential Calculus was
printed bodily in one of the earlier editions of the
Encyclopcedia Britannica (not so profitable as the
later), was told that he was welcome, in his turn,
to incorporate the Encyclopedia Britannica in the
next edition of his little treatise.
In the supposition, however, that there are few
readers who, like Lord King, can boast of having
read the Statutes at Large through, I venture to give
a title of an Act - a title only, remember, of one
of the bundle of acts passed in one session - as an
instance of the comprehensiveness of English statute
law, and the lively way in which it skips from one
subject to another. It is called —
10




146            HIS FUVNCTIONS.
"An Act to continue several laws for the better
regulating of pilots, for the conducting of ships and
vessels from Dover, Deal, and the Isle of Thanet,
up the River Thames and Medway; and for the
permitting rum or spirits of the British sugar plantations to be landed before the duties of excise are
paid thereon; and to continue and amend an Act
for preventing fraud in the adrneasurement of coals
within the city and liberties of Westminster, and
several parishes near thereunto; and to continue
several laws for preventing exactions of occupiers of
locks and wears upon the River Thames westward;
and for ascertaining the rates of water-carriage upon
the said river; and for the better regulation and
government of seamen in the merchant service; and
also to amend so much of an Act made during the
reign of King George I. as relates to the better
preservation of salmon in the River Ribble; and to
regulate fees in trials and assizes at nisi prius," &c.
But this gets tiresome, and we are only half way
through the title after all. If the reader wants the
rest of it, as also the substantial Act itself, whereof
it is the title, let him turn to the 23d of Geo. II.,
chap. 26.
No wonder, if he anticipated this sort of thing,
that Bacon should have commended "' the excellent
brevity of the old Scots acts." Here, for instance,
is a specimen, an actual statute at large, such as
they were in those pigmy days:"Item, it is statute that gif onie of the King's
lieges passes in England, and resides and remains




TIlE GLEANER AND HIS HAR VEST.  147
there against the King's will, he shall be halden as
Traiter to the King."
Here is another, very comprehensive, and worth
a little library of modern statute-books, if it was
duly enforced: —
" Item, it is statute and  ordained, that all our
Sovereign lord's lieges being under his obeisance,
and especially the Isles, be ruled by our Sovereign
lord's own laws, and the common laws of the realm,
and none other laws."
The Irish  statute-book  opens characteristically
with "' An Act that the King's officers may travel
by sea from  one place to another within the land of
Ireland."     And further on we have a whole series
1 [I am as much at loss to discover what is characteristic in
this opening sentence of the Irish statute book, as I was with
regard to the emendation of the passage in Hamlet, on page 67.
The author plainly intimates that the passage contains a bull;
but it does not, or the semblance of one. Dublin and Cork, I
take it, are both " within the land of Ireland," and yet it is common enough to " travel by sea" from one to the other. The
author shows elsewhere a very nice appreciation of what is
essential to a bull. I do not know that a bull has ever been
exactly defined; but it seems to me that its essential element
is a statement of the impossible and preposterous with a ludicrous semblance to the possible and natural. Thus the account
on page 136 of the duel is an absolutely perfect bull. So is the
advertisement on page 158 describing a man whose age is not
known, but who looks older than he is. Perhaps there is no more
complete and exquisite bull than the reply of the Irishman who
had been some time in this country, to the question of his newly
arrived countryman, as to the political condition of the people
here. "Is it thrue, Pat, that wan man's as good as another in
this counthry? "  "Yis, be jabers, an' betther too."  The exquisite touch in this cannot be appreciated by an) one who does




148                HIS  FUNCTi0NS.
of acts, with a conjunction of epithets in their titles
which, at the present day, sounds rather startling,'" for the better suppressing  Tories, Robbers, and
Rapparees, and for preventing robberies, burglaries,
and other heinous crimes."   The classes so associated having an unreasonable dislike of being killed,
difficulties are thus put in the way of those beneficially  employed  in killing them, insomuch  that
they, " upon the killing of ally one of their number,
not know the presumption and self-importance of the Irishmen
who come here (I except, of course, the educated and intelligent few); —a presumption in which they are confirmed by the
fact, that, owing to the well-known indifference of the very large
cultivated class of the North to political affkirs, and their absolute non-appearance in them under ordinary circumstances, (for
which indifference there are amply sufficient reasons,) the Irish
formerly and now the Irish and the German citizens, though
comparatively so few, hold the balance of political power, and
therefore are courted not only by demagogues, but even by such
honest men as have engaged in politics. But to return to the
bulls. The author doubts (page 137) whether Sir Boyle Roche's
often quoted saying about being in two places at once, like a bird,
is a genuine bull. There can be no doubt about it at all. It is
simply a stupid blunder. There is not the least semblance of
truth in it. An intelligent child would not be bewildered by it
for a moment. He would see instantly, if not intuitively, that
quickness of passage and identity of place are a contradiction in
terms. The saying is suggestive of' one which is characteristic
of its birthplace on this side of the Atlantic, where humor often
consciously takes a form much like the unconscious absurdity of
Irish bulls. There is a little river at the West which is said to
be " so crooked that when birds fly across it they light upon
the same side they started from." The story put into the negro's mouth who was sent to count the pigs, and reported that
he had counted them all except one little one who ran about so
fast that he couldn't count him, is also a pure bull of this country's breeding. - W.]




THE GLEANER AND 11S HIARVEST.  149
are thereby so alarmed and put upon their keeping,
that it bath been found impracticable for such person or persons to discover and apprehend, or kill
any more of them, whereby they are discouraged
from discovering and apprehending or killing," and
so forth.  There is a strange and melancholy historical interest in these motley enactments, since
they almost verbatim repeat the legislation about
the Highland clans passed a century earlier by the
Lowland Parliament of Scotland.
To one shelf of the law library, however, an interest attaches which few are ready to deny - that
devoted to the literature of Criminal Trials.  It
will go hard indeed, if, besides the reports of mere
technicalities, there be not here some glimpses of
the sad romlances which lie at their heart; and,
at all events, when the page passes a very slight
degree beyond the strictly professional, the technicalities will be found mingled with abundant
narrative.  The State Trials, for instance -surely
a lawyer's book-contains the materials of a thousand romances; nor are these all attached to political offences; as, fortunately, the book is better
than its name, and makes a virtuous effort to
embrace all the remarkable trials coming within
the long period covered by the collection.  Some
assistance may be got, at the same time, from
minor luminaries, such as the Newgate Calendarnot to be commended, certainly, for its literary
merits, but full of matters strange and horrible,
which, like the gloomy forest of the Castle of




150             HIS FUNCTIONS.
Indolence, " send forth a sleepy horror through
the blood."
There are many other books where records of
remarkable crimes are mixed up with much rubbish,
as, The Terrific Register, God's Revenge against
Murder, a little French book called Histoire Gen6rale des Larrons (1623), and if the inquirer's taste
turn towards maritime crimes, the History of the
Bucaniers, by Esquemeling.  A little work in four
volumes, called The Criminal Recorder, by a student in the Inner Temple, can be commended as
a sort of encyclopedia of this kind of literature.
It professes —and is not far from accomplishing
the profession —to give biographical sketches of
notorious public characters, including "murderers,
traitors, pirates, mutineers, incendiaries, defrauders,
rioters, sharpers, highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, swindlers, housebreakers, coiners, receivers,
extortioners, and other noted persons who have suffered the sentence of the law for criminal offences."
By far the most luxurious book of this kind, however, in the English language, is Captain Johnston's
Lives of Highwaymen and Pirates. It is rare to
find it now complete. The old folio editions have
been often mutilated by over use: the many later
editions in octavo are mutilated by design of their
editors; and for conveying any idea of the rough
truthful descriptiveness of a book compiled in the
palmy days of highway robbery, they are worthless.
All our literature of that nature must, however,
yield to the French Causes C6lebres, a term ren



TILE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  151
dered so significant by the value and interest of the
book it names, as to have been borrowed by writers
in this country to render their works attractive. It
must be noted as a reason for the success of this
work, and also of the German collection by Feuerbach, that the despotic Continental method of procedure by secret inquiry affords much better material for narrative than ours by open trial. We
make, no doubt, a great drama of a criminal trial.
Everything is brought on the stage at once, and
cleared off before an audience excited so as no
player ever could excite; but it loses in reading;
while the Continental inquiry, with its slow secret
development of the plot, makes the better novel
for the fireside.
There is a method by which, among ourselves,
the trial can be imbedded in a narrative which
may carry down to later generations a condensed
reflection of that protracted expectation and excitement which disturb society during the investigations and trials occasioned by any great crime.
This is by," illustrating" the trial, through a process resembling that which has been already supposed to have been applied to one of Watts's
hymns.  In this instance there will be all the
newspaper scraps -  all the hawker's broadsides
-the portraits of the criminal, of the chief witnesses, the judges, the counsel, and various other'
persons, - everything in literature or art that,
bears on the great question.
He who inherits or has been able to procure a




152             HIS FUNCTIONS.
collection of sucl illustrated trials, a century or so
old, is deemed fortunate among collectors, for lihe
can at any time raise up for himself the spectre as
it were of the great mystery and exposure that for
weeks was the absorbing topic of attraction to millions.  The curtains are down -  the fire burns
bright —the cat purrs on the rug; Atticus, soused
in his easy-chair, cannot be at the trouble of going
to see lMacbeth or Othello —he will sup full of
horrors from his own stores.  Accordingly lie takes
down an unseemly volume, characterized by a flabby
obesity by reason of the unequal size of the papers
contained in it, all being bound to the back, while
the largest only reach the margin.  The first thing
at opening is the dingy pea-green-looking paragraph from  the provincial newspaper, describing
how the reapers, going to their work at dawn, saw
the clay beaten with the marks of struggle, and,
following the dictates of curiosity, saw a bloody
rag sticking on a tree, the leaves also streaked
with red, and, lastly, the instrument of violence
hidden in the mloss; next comes from  another:source the lamentations for a young woman who
had left her home -then the excitement of putting that and that together - the search, and the.discovery of the body.  The next paragraph turns,suspense into exulting wrath' the perpetrator has
been found with his bloody shirt on - a scowling
murderous villain as ever was seen- an eminent:poacher, and fit for anythlling.  But the next paragraph turns the tables.  The ruffian had his own




THE GLEANER AND jIS HARVEST.  153
secrets of what he had been about that night, and
at last makes a clean breast.  It would have been
a bad business for him  at any other time, but now
he is a revealing angel, for lie noted this and that
in the course of his own little game, and gives
justice the thread which leads to a wonderful
romance, and  brings  home  desperate  crime  to
that quarter  where, from   rank, education, and
profession, it was least likely to be found. Then
comes the trial and the execution; and so, at a
sitting, has been  swallowed  all that  excitement
which, at some  time  long  ago, chained  up  the
public in protracted  suspense for weeks.
The reader will see, from what I have just been
saying, that I am not prepared to back Charles
Lamb's Index Expurgatorius.1        It is difficult, almost
1 "In this catalogue of books wzlich are no books - biblial a biblia
-I reckon court calendars, directories, pocket-books, draughtboards bound and lettered on the back, scientific treatises, alma
nacs, statutes at large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and generally' all those volumes
which'no gentleman's library should be without;' the histories of Flavius Josephus (that learned Jew) and Paley's Moral
Philosophy. With these exceptions, I can read almost anything. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, so unexcluding.
I confess that it moves my spleen to see these things in books'
clothing perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true
shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a
volume, and hope it some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening
what'seem its leaves,' to come bolt upon a withering population essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find - Adam
Smith.  To view a well-arranged assortment of block-headed
encyclopedias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) set out in an array




154              HIS FUNCTIONS.
impossible, to find the book from which something
either valuable or amusing may not be found, if the
proper alembic be applied. I know books that are
curious, and really amusing, from  their excessive
badness.  If you want to find precisely how  a
thing ought not to be said, you take one of them
down, and make it perform  the service of the intoxicated Spartan slave.  There are some volumes
in which, at a chance opening, you are certain to
find a mere platitude delivered in the most superb
and amazing climax of big words, and others in
which you have a like happy facility in finding
every proposition stated with its stern forward, as
sailors say, or in some other grotesque mismanagement of composition. There are no better farces
on or off the stage than when two or three congenial spirits ransack books of this kind, and compete with each other in taking fun out of them.
There is a solid volume, written in an inquiring
spirit, but in a manner which reminds one of deep
calling unto deep, about the dark superstitions of a
country which was once a separate European kingdom.   I feel a peculiar interest in it, from  the
author having informed me, by way of communicating  an important fact in literary history, and
also as an example to be followed by literary asof russia or morocco, when a tithe of that good leather would
comfortably reclothe my shivering folios, would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look like himself
again in the world. I never see these impostors but I long to
strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils." - lssays of Elia.




TIlE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.   155
pirants, that, before committing the book to the
press, he had written it over sixteen times. It would
have been valuable to have his first manuscript,
were it only that one might form some idea of the
steps by which he had brought it into the condition
in which it was printed. But its perusal in that
condition was not entirely thrown away, since I
was able to recommend it to a teacher of composition, as containing, within a moderate compass -
after the manner, in fact, of a handbook -  good
practical specimens of every description of depravity of style of which the English language is susceptible.
In the present day, when few scholars have opportunities of enriching the world with their prison
hours, perhaps the best conditions for testing how
far any volume or portion of printed matter, however hopeless-looking, may yet yield edifying or
amusing matter to a sufficient pressure, will occur
when a bookish person finds himself imprisoned in
a country inn, say for twenty-four hours. Such
things are not impossible in this age of rapid movement. It is not long since a train, freighted with
musical artistes, sent express to perform at a provincial concert and be back immediately in town for
other engagements, were caught by a great snowstorm, which obliterated the railway, and had to
live for a week or two in a wayside alehouse, in
one of the dreariest districts of Scotland.  The
possessor and user of a large library undergoing
such a calamity in a modified shape will be able to




156            IIS FUNCTIONS.
form a conception of the resources at his disposal,
and to calculate how long it will take him  to exhaust the intellectual treasures at his command, just
as a millionnaire, haunted as such people sometimes
are by the dread of coming on the parish, might
test how long a life his invested capital would support by spending a winter in a Shetlandcl  cottage,
and living on what he could procure.  Having exhausted all other sources of excitement and interest,
the belated traveller is supposed to call for the literature of tile establishment.  Perhaps the Directory
of the county town is the only available volume.
XWho shall say what the belated traveller may make
of this?  He may do a turn in local statistics, or,
if his ambition rises higher, lie may pursue some
valuable ethnological inquiries, trying whether Celtic or Saxon names prevail, and testing the justice
of Mr. Thierry's theory by counting the Norman
patronymics, and observing whether any of them
are owned by persons following plebeian and sordid
occupations.  If in after-life the sojourner should
come in contact with people interested in the politics or business of that county town, he will surprise them  by exhibiting his minute acquaintance
with its affairs.
If, besides the Directory, an Almanac, old or
new, is to be had, the analysis may be conducted
on a greatly widened basis.  The rotations of the
changes of the seasons may at the same time suggest many appropriate reflections on the progress of
man from tile cradle to the grave, and all that lie




THIE GLEANER AND HIIS HARVEST.   157
meets with between the alpha and omega; and if
the prisoner is a man of genius, the announcements
of eclipses and other solar phenomena will suggest
trains of thought which he call carry up to any
height of sublimity. A person in the circumstances supposed, after he has exhausted the Directory
and the Almanac, may perhaps be led to read (if
he can get) Zimmerman On Solitude, Harvey's
Meditations, Watts On the Improvement of the
Mind, or Hannah More's Sacred Dramas. Who
knows what he may be reduced to? I remember
the great Irish liberator telling how, when once
detained in an inn in Switzerland, he could find no
book to beguile the time with but the Lettres Provinciales of Pascal.  I have no doubt that the
coerced perusal of them to which he had to submit
did him a deal of good.
Let us imagine that nothing better is to be found
than the advertising sheet of an old newspaper
never mind. Let the unfortunate man fa11l to and
read the advertisements courageously, and make the
best of them. An advertisement is itself a fact,
though it may sometimes be the vehicle of a falsehood; and, as some one has remarked, he who has a
fact in hand is like a turner with a piece of wood in
his lathe, which he can manipulate to his liking,
tooling it in any way, as a plain cylinder or a richly
ornamented toy. There have been fortunate instances of people driven to read them finding good
jokes and other enjoyable things in advertisements
-such things as make one almost regret that so




158               HIS FUNVCTIOVS.
little attention has been paid to this department of
literature.l   Advertisements, in fact, bring us into
the very heart of life and business, and there is a
world of interest in them. Suppose that the dirty
broadside you pick up in the dingy inn's soiled
room  contains the annual announcement of the
reassembling of the school in which you spent your
own years of school-boy life - what a mingled and
many-figured romance does it recall of all that has
befallen to yourself and others since the day when
the same advertisement made you sigh, because the
hour was close at hand when you were to leave
home and  all its homely ways to dwell among
strangers!  Going  onward, you  remember how
each one after another ceased to be a stranger, and
twined himself about your heart; and then comes
the reflection, Where are they all now? You remember how
" He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life."
You recall to your memory also those two insepara1 Take, for instance, the announcement of the wants of an
affluent and pious elderly lady, desirous of having the services
of a domestic like-minded with herself, who appeals to the public for a "groom to take charge of two carriage-horses of a
serious turn of mind." So also the simple-hearted innkeeper,
who founds on his limited "charges and civility;" or the description given by a distracted family of a runaway member,
who consider that they are affording valuable means for his identification by saying, " age not precisely known - but looks older
than he is.'




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  159
bles - linked together, it would seem, because they
were so unlike.  The one, gentle, dreamy, and
romantic, was to be the genius of the set; but alas,
he "took to bad habits," and oozed into the slime
of life, imperceptibly almost, hurting no creature
but himself- unless it may be that to some parent
or other near of kin his gentle facility may have
caused keener pangs than others give by cruelty
and tyranny.  The other, bright-eyed, healthy,
strong, and keen-tempered -the best fighter and
runner and leaper in the school-the dare-devil
who was the leader in every row -took to Greek
much about the time when his companion took to
drinking, got a presentation, wrote some wonderful
things about the functions of the chorus, and is now
on the fair road to a bishopric.
Next arises the vision of "the big boy," the lout
-the butt of every one, even of the masters, who,
when any little imp did a thing well, always made
the appropriate laudation tell to the detriment of
the big boy, as if he were bound to be as superfluous in intellect as in flesh. He has sufficiently
dinned into him to make him thoroughly modest,
poor fellow, how all great men were little. Napoleon was little, so was Frederic the Great, William
III., the illustrious Cond6, Pope, Horace, Anacreon,
Campbell, Tom Moore, and Jeffrey.  His relations
have so thoroughly given in to the prejudice against
him, that they get him a cadetship because he is fit
for nothing at home; and now, years afterwards,
the newspapers resound with his fame - how, when




160            itIS FUNCTlO0/iS.
at the quietest of all stations when the mutiny suddenly broke out in its most murderous shape, and
even experienced veterans lost heart, he remained
firm and collected, quietly developing, one after another, resources of which he was not himself aware,
and in the end putting things right, partly by stern
vigor, but more by a quiet tact and genial appreciation of the native character.  But what has beconie of the Dux - him who, in the predictions of
all, teachers and taught, was to render the institution some day illustrious by occupying the Woolsack, or the chief place at the Speaker's right
hand?  A  curious destiny is hlis: at a certain
point the curve of his ascent was as it were truncated, and hle took to the commonest level of ordinary life.  He may now be seen, staid and sedate
in his walk, which brings him, with a regularity
that has rendered him  useful to neighbours owning erratic watches, day by (lay to a lofty threelegged stool, mounted on which, all his proceedings confirm the high character retained by him
through several years for the neatness of his handwriting, and especially for his precision in clotting
his i's and stroking his t's.
This is all along of the use which the reflective
man may make of an old advertisement. If it be
old, the older the better - the more likely is it to
contain matter of curious interest or instruction
about the ways of men. To show this, I reprint
two advertisements from British newspapers.




THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST.  161
From  the Public Advertiser of 28th March, 1769.
T 0  be SOLD, A BLACK GIRL, the property of J. B -,
[ eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at
her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well: is of an
excellent temper, and willing disposition.
"Inquire of Mr Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church in the Strand."
From  the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 18th April,,
1768.
"A  BLACK BOY TO  SELL.
cc TO  be SOLD, A BLACK BOY, with long hair, stout made,.. and well-limbed -is good-tempered, can dress hair, and
take care of a horse indifferently. He has been in Britain near'
three years.
" Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for
~40. He belongs to Captain ABERCROMVBIE at Broughton.
"This advertisement not to be repeated."
There was at that time probably more of this
description of property in Britain than in Virginia.
It had become fashionable, as one may see in Hogarth.   Such  advertisements -  they were  abundant -  might furnish an apt text on which a philosophical historian could speculate on the probable
results to this country, had not Mansfield gone to
the root of the matter by denying all property in
slaves.l
1 It was on this occasion, and in answer to the plea of the vast
property, amounting to millions, at issue on the question, that
Mansfield uttered that memorable maxim which nobody can
11




162             HIS FUNCTIONS.
So much for the chances which still remain to
the heluo librorum or devourer of books, if, after
having consumed all the solid volumes within his
reach, he should be reduced to shreds and patches
of literature, like a ship's crew having resort to
shoe-leather and the sweepings of the locker.
rCtentl[Cers.,UT now to return to the point whence
we started -the disposition, and almost
the necessity, which the true enthusiast
5~  z in the pursuit feels to look into the soul,
as it were, of his book, after he has got possession
of the body. When he is not of the omnivorous
kind, but one who desires to possess a particular
book, and, having got it, dips into the contents
before committing it to permanent obscurity on
his loaded shelves, there is, as we have already
seen, a certain thread of intelligent association
linking the items of his library to each other.
The collector knows what he wants, and why he
wants it, and that why does not entirely depend
on exteriors, though he may have his whim as to
that also.
trace back to any other authority, " Fiat justitia - ruat ccelum."
Sir Thomas Browne has, in his Religio Medici, "Ruat ccelum
— fiat voluntas tua." Perhaps he may have found this in one
of the Fathers.




PRETENDERS.                163
He is a totally different being from the animal
who goes to all sales, and buys every book that is
cheap. That is a painfully low and grovelling type
of the malady; and, fortunately for the honor of
literature, the bargain-hunter who suffers under it
is not in general a special votary of books, but buys
all bargains that come in his way - clocks, tables,
forks, spoons, old uniforms, gas-meters, magic lanterns, galvanic batteries, violins (warranted real
Cremonas from their being smashed to pieces),
classical busts (with the same testimony to their
genuineness), patent coffee-pots, crucibles, amputating knives, wheel-barrows, retorts, cork-screws,
boot-jacks, smoke-jacks, melon frames, bath-chairs,
and hurdy-gurdies. It has been said that once, a
coffin, made too short for its tenant, being to be
had an undoubted bargain, was bought by him, in
the hope that, some day or other, it might prove
of service in his family.  His library, if such it
may be termed, is very rich in old trade-directories, justices of peace and registers of voters, roadbooks, and other useful manuals; but there are
very learned books in it too. That clean folio
Herodotus was certainly extremely cheap at halfa-crown; and you need not inform him that the
ninth book is wanting, for he will never find that
out. The day when he has discovered that any
book has been bought by another person, a better
bargain than his own copy, is a black one in his
calendar; but he has a peculiar device of his own
for getting over the calamity by bringing down the




164            HIS FUNCTIONS.
average cost of his own copy through fresh investments. Having had the misfortune to buy a copy
of Goldsmith's History of England for five shillings, while a neighbor flaunts daily in his face a
copy obtained for three, he has been busily occupied in a search for copies still cheaper. He has
now brought down the average price of his own
numerous copies to three shillings and twopence,
and hopes in another year to get below the three
shillings.
Neither is the rich man who purchases fine and
dear books by deputy to be admitted within the
category of the genuine book-hunter.  He must
hunt himself- must actually undergo the anxiety,
the fatigue, and, so far as purse is concerned, the
risks of the chase. Your rich man, known to the
trade as a great orderer of books, is like the owner
of the great game-preserve, where the sport is heavy
butchery; there is none of the real zest of the
hunter of the wilderness to be had within his gates.
The old Duke of Roxburghe wisely sank his rank
and his wealth, and wandered industriously and
zealously from shop to stall over the world, just as
he wandered over the moor stalking the deer. One
element in the excitement of the poorer book-hunter
he must have lacked —the feeling of committing
something of extravagance - the consciousness of
parting with that which will be missed. This is
the sacrifice which assures the world, and satisfies
the man's own heart, that he is zealous and earnest
in the work he has set about. And it is decidedly




PRETENDERS.                     165
this class who most read and use the books they
possess.1  How genial a picture does Scott give of
himself at the time of the Roxburghe sale -the
1 [I shall not resist the temptation of quoting here a charming
passage from Henry Ward Beecher's " Star Papers," although
thousands, and, I believe, tens of thousands of that book have
been sold. What our author states as general truth is to Mr.
Beecher the inspiration of a picture full of life and humor; based,
however, I am sure, on a study from nature. The latter seems
almost an expansion of the former, or the former a generalization of the latter; and yet the " Star Papers " were published
seven years ago, and Mr. Burton, doubtless, never saw them.
"As a hungry man eats first, and pays afterward, so the bookbuyer purchases, and then works at the debt afterward. This
paying is rather medicinal. It cures for a time. But a relapse
takes place. The same longing, the same promises of self-denial.
He promises himself to put spurs on both heels of his industry; and then, besides all this, he will somehow get along when
the time for payment comes! Ah! this soMIHow! That word
is as big as a whole world, and is stuffed with all the vagaries
and fantasies that Fancy ever bred upon Hope. And yet, is
there not some comfort in buying books, to be paid for? We
have heard of a sot, who wished his neck as long as the worm
of a still, that he might so much the longer enjoy the flavor of
the draught! Thus, it is a prolonged excitement of purchase,
if you feel for six months in a slight doubt whether the book is
honestly your own or not. Had you paid down, that would
have been the end of it. There would have been no affectionate
and beseeching look of your books at you, every time you saw
them, saying, as plain as a book's eyes can say,'Do not let me
be taken from you.'
"Moreover, buying books before you can pay for them promotes caution. You do not feel quite at liberty to take them
home. You are married. Your wife keeps an account-book.
She knows to a penny what you can and what you cannot
afford. She has no'speculation' in her eyes. Plain figures
make desperate work with airy' somehows.' It is a matter of no
small skill and experience to get your books home, and into




166. HIS FUNCTIONS.
creation of Abbotsford pulling him  one way, on the
other his desire to accumulate a library round him
in his Tusculum.  Writing to his familiar Terry he
says, " The worst of all is, that while my trees grow
and my fountain fills, my purse, in an inverse ratio,
sinks to zero.  This last circumstance will, I fear,
make me a very poor guest at the literary entertainment your researches hold out for me. I should,
however, like much to have the treatise on Dreams
their proper places, undiscovered. Perhaps the blundering Express brings them to the door just at evening.' What is it, my
dear?' she says to you.'Oh! nothing - a few books that I
cannot do without.' That smile! A true housewife that loves
her husband can smile a whole arithmetic at him in one look!
Of course she insists, in the kindest way, in sympathizing
with you in your literary acquisition.  She cuts the strings
of the bundle, (and of your heart,) and out comes the whole
story.  You have bought a complete set of costly English
books, full bound in calf, extra gilt! You are caught, and
feel very much as if bound in calf yourself, and admirably
lettered.
"Now, this must not happen frequently. The books must be
smuggled home. Let them be sent to some near place. Then,
when your wife has a headache, or is out making a call, or has
lain down, run the books across the frontier and threshold, hastily undo them, stop only for one loving glance as you put them
away in the closet, or behind other books on the shelf, or on the
topmost shelf. Clear away the twine and wrapping-paper, and
every suspicious circumstance. Be very careful not to be too
kind. That often brings on detection. Only the other day we
heard it said, somewhere,' Why, how good you have been, lately.
I am really afraid that you have been carrying on mischief secretly.' Our heart smote us. It was a fact. That very day
we had bought a few books which'we could not do without.'
After a while, you can bring out one volume, accidentally, and
leave it on the table.' Why, my dear, what a beautiful book!
Where did you borrow it?' You glance over the newspaper,




PRETENDERS.                    167
by the author of the New  Jerusalem, which, as
John Cuthbertson, the smith, said of the minister's
sermon,' must be neat wark.'  The loyal poems by
N. T. are probably by poor Nahum Tate, who was
associated with Brady in versifying the Psalms, and
more honorably with Dryden  in the second part
of Absalorn and Achitophel. I never saw them,
however, but would give a guinea or thirty shillings
for the collection."
with the quietest tone you can command:'That! oh! that is
mine. Have you not seen it before? It has been in the house
these two months;' and you rush on with anecdote and incident, and point out the binding, and that peculiar trick of gilding, and everything else you can think of; but it all will not do;
you cannot rub out that roguish, arithmetical smile. People
may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal.
The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman, will vanquish ten
men. Of course you repent, and in time form a habit of repenting.
"Another method which will be found peculiarly effective, is,
to make a present of some fine work, to your wife. Of course,
whether she or you have the name of buying it, it will go into
your collection and be yours to all intents and purposes. But,
it stops remark in the presentation. A wife could not reprove
you for so kindly thinking of her. No matter what she suspects,
she will say nothing. And then if there are three or four more
works, which have come home with the gift-book —they will
pass through the favor of the other.
"These are pleasures denied to wealth and old bachelors. Indeed, one cannot imagine the peculiar pleasure of buying books,
if one is rich and stupid. There must be some pleasure, or so
many would not do it. But the full flavor, the whole relish of:
delight only comes to those who are so poor that they must engineer for every book. They set clown before them, and besiege
them. They are captured. Each book has a secret history of'
ways and means. It reminds you of subtle devices by which;
you insured and made it yours, in spite of poverty 1 " - W.]




168            HIS FUNCTIONS.
One of the reasons why Dibdin's expatiations
among rare and valuable volumes are, after all, so
devoid of interest, is, that he occupied himself in a
great measure in catering for men with measureless
purses.  Hence there is throughout too exact an
estimate of everything by what it is worth in sterling cash, with a contempt for small things, which
has an unpleasant odor of plush and shoulder-knot
about it. Compared with dear old Monkbarns and
his prowlings among the stalls, the narratives of the
Boccaccio of the book-trade are like the account of
a journey that might be written from the rumble
of the travelling chariot, when compared with the
adventurous narrative of the pedestrian or of the
wanderer in the far east. Everything is too comfortable, luxurious, and easy - russia, morocco, embossing, marbling, gilding-all crowding on one
another, till one feels suffocated with riches. There
is a feeling, at the same time, of the utter useless
pomp of the whole thing. Books, in the condition
in which he generally describes them, are no more
fitted for use and consultation than white kids and
silk stockings are for hard work. Books should be
used decently and respectfully - reverently, if you
will, but let there be no toleration for the doctrine
that there are volumes too splendid for use, too fine
almost to be looked at, as Brummel said of some
of his Dresden china. That there should be little
interest in the record of rich men buying costly
books which they know nothing about and never
become acquainted with, is an illustration of a




PRETENDERS.                169
wholesome truth, pervading all human endeavors
after happiness. It is this, that the active, racy enjoyments of life-those enjoyments in which there
is also exertion and achievement, and which depend
on these for their proper relish - are not to be
bought for hard cash. To have been to him the
true elements of enjoyment, the book-hunter's treasures must not be his mere property, they must be
his achievements -each one of them recalling the
excitement of the chase and the happiness of success. Like Monkbarns with his Elzevirs and his
bundle of pedler's ballads, he must have, in common with all hunters, a touch of the competitive
in his nature, and be able to take the measure of a
rival, - as Monkbarns magnanimously takes that
of Davie Wilson, " commonly called Snuffy Davie,
from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, who
was the very prince of scouts for searching blind
alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare volumes. He had
the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a
bull-dog. He would detect you an old black-letter
ballad among the leaves of a law-paper, and find
an editio princeps under the mask of a school Corderius."
In pursuing the chase in this spirit, the sportsmall is by no means precluded from indulgence in
the adventitious specialties that delight the commonest biblioinaniac.  There is a good deal more
in many of them than the first thought discloses.
An "G editio princeps " is not a mere toy - it has
something in it that may purchase the attention




170            HIS FUNCTIONS.
even of a thinking man. In the first place, it is
a very old commodity- about four hundred years
of age. If you look around you in the world you
will see very few movables coeval with it.  No
doubt there are wonderfully ancient things shown
to travellers, - as in Glammis Castle you may see
the identical four-posted bedstead - a very creditable piece of cabinetmakery - in which King Malcolm was murdered a thousand years ago.  But
genuine articles of furniture so old as the editio
princeps are very rare. If we should highly esteem a poker, a stool, a drinking-can, of that age,
is there not something worthy of observance, as
indicating the social condition of the age, in those
venerable pages, made to look as like the handwriting of their day as possible, with their decorated capitals, all squeezed between two solid
planks of oak, covered with richly embossed hogskin, which can be clinched together by means of
massive decorated clasps? And shall we not admit it to a higher place in our reverence than some
mere item of household convenience, when we reflect that it is the very form in which some great
ruling intellect, resuscitated from long interment,
burst upon the dazzled eyes of Europe and displayed the fulness of its face?




CREATION OF LIBRARiES.          171
~is atrtjiremints in tfile Tration of   ibrarics.
O much, then, for the benefit which the
class to whom these pages are devoted
derive to themselves from their peculiar
pursuit. Let us now turn to the far more
remarkable phenomena, in which these separate
and perhaps selfish pursuers of their own instincts
and objects are found to concur in bringing out
a great influence upon the intellectual destinies
of mankind.  It is said of Brindley, the great
canal engineer, that, - when a member of a committee, where he was under examination, a little
provoked or amused by his entire devotion to
canals, asked him if he thought there was any
use of rivers, — he promptly answered, " Yes, to
feed navigable canals." So, if there be no other
respectable function in life fulfilled by the bookhunter, I would stand up for the proposition that
he is the feeder, provided by nature, for the preservation of literature from age to age, by the accumulation and preservation of libraries, public or
private. It will require perhaps a little circumlocutory exposition to show this, but here it is.
A great library cannot be constructed — it is
the growth of ages. You may buy books at any
time with money, but you cannot make a library
like one that has been a century or two a-growing,
though you had the whole national debt to do it




172             HIS FUNCTI ONS.
with. I remember once how an extensive publisher, speaking of the rapid strides which literature had made of late years, and referring to a
certain old public library, celebrated for its affluence in the fathers, the civilians, and the medieval
chroniclers, stated how he had himself freighted
for exportation, within the past month, as many
books as that whole library consisted of.  This
was likely enough to be true, but the two collections were very different from  each other.  The
cargoes of books were probably thousands of copies of some few  popular selling works.  They
might be a powerful illustration of the diffusion
of knowledge, but what they were compared with
was its concentration.  Had all the paper of which
these cargoes consisted been bank-notes, they would
not have enabled their owner to create a duplicate
of the old library, rich in the fathers, the civilians,
and the medieval chroniclers.
This impossibility of improvising libraries is really an important and curious thing; and since it
is apt to be overlooked, owing to the facility of
buying books, in quantities generally far beyond the
available means of any ordinary buyer, it seems
worthy of some special consideration.  A  man
who sets to form a library will go on swimmingly
for a short way.  He will easily get Tennyson's
Poems - Macaulay's and Alison's Histories - the
Encyclopmdia Britannica - Buckle on Civilization
- all the books " in print," as it is termed. Nay,
he will find no difficulty in procuring copies of




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.               173
others which may not happen to be on the shelves
of the publisher or of the retailer of new books.
Of Voltaire's works-  a little library in itselfhe wtill get a copy at his call in London, if he has
not set his mind on some special edition. So of
Scott's edition of Swift or Dryden, Crocker's edition of Boswell's Johnson, and the like. One canll
scarcely suppose a juncture in which any of these
cannot be found through the electric chain of
communication established by the book trade. Of
Gibbon's and Hume's Histories -  Jeremy Taylor's
works -  Bossuet's Universal History, and the like,
copies abound everywhere. Go back a little, and
ask for Kennet's Collection of the Historians -
Echard's History, Bayle, Moreri, or Father Daniel's History of France, you cannot be so certain
of immediately obtaining your object, but you
will get the book in the end — no doubt about
that.1
Everything has its caprices, and there are some
books which might be expected to be equally shy,
but in reality, by some inexplicable fatality, are as
plentiful as blackberries; such, for instance, are
1 [The assertion is true with regard to much scarcer books than
those named by the author; although not, of course, with regard
to those which may justly be called rare. I heard a very thoroughly informed and observant bookseller say, (he has too much
sense, should he see these lines, to wish that he had been called a
bibliopole; and, by the way, he is capable of instructing most
of his customers,) that every book except those of which all
the copies were known to be in certain great collections, turned
up for sale once in five years. My own observation and experience lead me to think that this is very near the truth. And so,




174              HIS FUNCTIONS.
Famianus Strada's History of the Dutch War of
Independence -  one of the most brilliant works
ever written, and in the very best Latin after Buchanan's. There is Buchanan's own history, very
common even in the shape of the early Scotch edition of 1582, which is a highly favorable specimen
of Arbuthnot's printing. Then there are Barclay's
Argenis, and Raynal's Philosophical History of the
East and West Indies, without which no book-stall
is to be considered complete, and which seem to be
possessed of a supernatural power of resistance to
the elements, since, month after month, in fair
weather or foul, they are to be seen at their posts
dry or dripping.
So the collector goes on, till he perhaps collects
some five thousand volumes or so of select works.
If he is miscellaneous in his taste, be may get on
pretty comfortably to ten or fifteen thousand, and
then his troubles will arise. He has easily got
Baker's and Froissart's and Monstrelet's Chronicles,
because there are modern reprints of them in the
market.l   But if he want Cooper's Chronicle, he
afflicted book-hunter, when you see the idol of your longings
snatched away by another of your species, more reckless or
more pecunious than you, grieve not as those that are without hope. You will have another chance in five years. Though
candor compels me to confess that when that wearily expected
moment arrives there will appear at least four of those who like
you were disappointed; and in the lapse of five years they will
have added to themselves at least five other like marplots, worse
than themselves. Such are the trials of your calling. Bear
them with what strength and grace you may. - W.]
1 [A lady who sometimes does me the honor to look over my




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.               175
may have to wait for it, since its latest form is still
the black-letter.  True, I did pick up a copy lately,
at Braidwood's, for half-a-guinea, but that was a
catch — it might have caused the search of a lifetime. Still more hopeless it is when the collector's
ambition extends to The Ladder of Perfection of
Winkin de Worde, or to his King Rycharde Cure
de Lion, whereof it is reported in the Repertorium
Bibliographicum, that " an imperfect copy, wanting
one leaf, was sold by auction at Mr. Evans's, in
June 1817, to Mr. Watson Taylor for ~40 19s."
" Woe betide," says Dibdin, "' the young bibliomaniac who sets his heart upon Breton's Flourish upon
Fancie and Pleasant Toyes of an Idle Head, 1557,
4to; or Workes of a Young Wyt trussed up with
a Fardell of Pretty Fancies!!  Threescore guineas
shall hardly fetch these black-letter rarities from the
pigeon-holes of Mr. Thorpe. I lack courage to add
the prices for which these copies sold."  But he has
some comfort reserved for the hungry collector, in
the intimation  that The  Ravisht Soul and the
Blessed Weaper, by the same author, may be had
shoulder, here laughed with scorn. " Call a man a collector, or
a book-hunter, who will buy a reprint when the antiquated original is to be had! Why, a reprint isn't dirty; it doesn't smell
badly; it isn't tattered and torn; it doesn't need mending and
rebinding to keep it from tumbling to pieces; it has little chance
of harboring unnamable creeping things, which Noah might
as well have kept out of the ark. Why, a reprint can be read
comfortably, and by anybody! Reprints! The author must be
mad!" Upon what observation any woman could have founded
such extraordinary remarks, the reader is quite as well able to
judge as the writer.- W.]




176            HIS FUNCTIO.NS.
for ~15.1  It creates a thrilling interest to know,
through the same distinguished authority, that the
Heber sale must have again let loose upon the
world "' A merry gest and a true, howe John Flynter made his Testament," concerning which we are
told with appropriate solemnity and pathos, that
" Julian Notary is the printer of this inestimably
precious volume, and Mr. Heber is the thriceblessed owner of the copy described in the Typographical Antiquities."
Such works as the Knightly Tale of Galogras,
The Temple of Glas, Lodge's Nettle for Nice Noses,
or tile Book of Fayts of Armes, by Christene of
Pisa, or Caxton's Pylgremage of the Sowle, or his
Myrrour of the Worlde, will be long inquired after
before they come to the market, thoroughly contradicting that fundamental principle of political
economy, that the supply is always equal to the
demand.
IHe, indeed, who sets his mind on the possession
of any one of these rarities, may go to his grave a
disappointed man. It will be in general the consolation of the collector, however, that he is by no
means the " homo unius libri." There is always
something or other turning up for him, so long as
he keeps within moderate bounds. If he be rich
and ravenous, however, there is nothing for it but
duplicating- the most virulent form of book mania.
We have seen that Heber, whose collection, made
during his own lifetime, was on the scale of those
1 Library Companion, p. 699.




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.                177
public libraries which take generations to grow,
had, with all his wealth, his liberality, and his
persevering energy, to invest himself with duplicates, triplicates - often many copies of the same
book.
It is rare that the private collector runs himself
absolutely into this quagmire, and has so far exhausted the market that no already unpossessedi
volume turns up in any part of the world to court-;
his eager embraces.   The  limitation  constitutes,
however, a serious difficulty in the way of rapidly
creating great public libraries. We would obtain
the best testimony to this difficulty in America,
were our brethren there in a condition to speak or
think of so peaceful a pursuit as library-making.'
1 [In this kindly allusion to his brethren in this country, the
author makes a mistake, natural enough in one who has not
lived here a long while. That so peaceful a pursuit as librarymaking can be thought of here, is shown by the fact that at this
very time the annual Book Trade Sale is going on in New York
from a catalogue of 430 pages, and with very large attendance
and lively bidding. The very reprinting of this book about
library-making, of which, in spite of the specialty of its subject,
there will be three times as many sold here as in Great Britain,
is in itself evidence to the same purpose. It would probably be
impossible to make the author or any of his countrymen believe
that at the present time, and for a year and a half past, New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and, recently, even
New Orleans, are and have been as busy and thriving, as orderly,
and as free from violence as London, Liverpool, or Edinburgh;
and, as the police-records and the newspapers of both countries
show, far freer than the former city from robbery and theft. If
it be answered that all the robbers and thieves have gone into
the army, I deny it; some of them have gone into business as
contractors, which is their way in all countries. In the next
12




178               HIS FUNCTIONS.
In the normal condition of society there - something like that of Holland in the seventeenth century -  there are powerful elements for the promotion of art and letters, when wealth gives the means
and civilization the desire to promote them. The very
absence of feudal institutions -the inability to found
a baronial house -turns the thoughts of the rich
and liberal to other foundations calculated to transmit their name and influence to posterity.  And so
we have such bequests as John Jacob Astor's, who
left four hundred thousand dollars for a library,l
and the hundred and eighty thousand which were
the nucleus of the Smithsonian Institution.  Yes!
Their efforts in this direction have fully earned for
them  their own peculiar form  of laudation as " actually equal to cash."  Hence, as the book trade
and book buyers know very well, "the almighty
dollar " has been hard at work, trying to rear up
by its sheer force duplicates of the old European
sentence the likening of the condition of society here to that of
Holland in the seventeenth century will raise a smile on the lips
of those who know anything of the two societies which are compared. But I must not be tempted into writing in these notes a
book on " America and the Americans." - W.]
1 [Neither the author, nor Mr. Edwards in his book on libraries,
seems to have known that to Mr. John Jacob Astor's noble bequest, his son, Mr. William B. Astor, added some years ago the
gift, which needs no epithet, of other four hundred thousand
dollars.  If the money which is given by men of wealth in
this country (that is, in the Free States) in addition to the ample provision by the State, for the education and culture of
the whole people, were summed and stated, the account would
be looked upon out of the country with amazement and incredulity. - W.]




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.          179
libraries, containing not only all the ordinary stock
books in the market, but also the rarities, and those
individualities - solitary remaining copies of impressions -which the initiated call uniques. It is
clear, however, that when there is but one copy, it
can only be in one place; and if it have been rooted
for centuries in the Bodleian, or the University of
Tubingen, it is not to be had for Harvard or the
Astorian. Dr. Cogswell, the first librarian of the
Astorian, spent some time in Europe with his
princely endowment in his pocket, and showed
himself a judicious, active, and formidable sportsman in the book-hunting world. Whenever, from
private collections, or the breaking-up of public institutions, rarities got abroad into the open market,
the collectors of the old country found that they
had a resolute competitor to deal with-almost, it
might be said, a desperate one —since he was in a
manner the representative of a nation using powerful efforts to get possession of a share of the literary
treasures of the Old World.
In the case of a book, for instance, of which half
a dozen copies might be known to exist, the combatants before the auctioneer would be, on the one side,
many an ambitious collector desiring to belong to
the fortunate circle already in possession of such a
treasure; but on the other side was one on whose
exertions depended the question, whether the book
should henceforth be part of the intellectual wealth
of a great empire, and should be accessible for consultation by American scholars and authors without




180            HIS FUNCTIONS.
their requiring to cross the Atlantic. Let us see
how far, by a brief comparison, money has enabled
them to triumph over the difficulties of their position.
It is difficult to know exactly the numerical contents of a library, as some people count by volumes,
and others by the separate works, small or great;
and even if all should consent to count by volumes,
the estimate would not be precise, for in some libraries bundles of tracts and other small works are
massed in plethoric volunes for economy, while in
affluent institutions every collection of leaves put
under the command of a separate title-page is separately bound in cloth, calf, or morocco, according to
its rank. The Imperial Library at Paris is computed to contain above eight hundred thousand volumes; the Astorian boasts of approaching a hundred thousand: 1 the next libraries in size in America are the Harvard, with from eighty thousand to
ninety thousand; the Library of Congress, which
has from sixty thousand to seventy thousand; and
the Boston Athenmeum, which has about sixty thousand.
There are many of smaller size. In fact, there
is probably no country so well stocked as the States
with libraries of from ten thousand to twenty thousand volumes; the evidence that they have bought
what was to be bought, and have done all that a
new people can to participate in the long-hoarded
1 [The Astor Library contains more than one hundred and
twenty-five thousand volumes. -- W.]




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.            181
treasures of literature which it is the privilege of
the Old World to possess. I know that, especially
in the instance of the Astorian Library, the selections of books have been made with great judgment, and that, after the boundaries of the common
crowded market were passed, and individual rarities had to be stalked in distant hunting-grounds,
innate literary value was still held an object more
important than mere abstract rarity, and, as the
more worthy quality of the two, that on which the
buying power available to the emissary was brought
to bear.
The zeal and wealth which the citizens of the
States have thrown into the limited field from which
a library can be rapidly reaped, are manifested in
the size and value of their private collections. A
volume, called The Private Libraries of New York,
by James Wynne, M.D., affords interesting evidence of this phenomenon. It is printed on large,
thick paper, after the most luxurious fashion of our
book clubs, apparently for private distribution.1 The
author states, however, that " the greater part of
the sketches of private libraries to be found in this
volume, were prepared for and published in the
Evening Post about two years since. Their origin
is due to a request on the part of Mr. Bigelow, one
of the editors of the Post, to the writer, to examine
and sketch the more prominent private collections
of books in New York."
1 [This is the first of many erroneous conclusions with regard
to the book in question. It was published, though subscriptions
for a certain number of copies were first obtained.- W.]




182               HIS FUNCTIONS.
Such an undertaking reveals, to us of the old
country, a very singular social condition.  With us,
the class who may be thus offered up to the martyrdom  of publicity is limited.  The owners of
great houses and great collections are doomed to
share them with the public, and if they would frequent their own establishments, must be content to
do so in the capacity of librarians or showmen, for
the benefit of their numerous and uninvited visitors.
They generally, with wise resignation, bow to the
sacrifice, and, abandoning all connection with their
treasures, dedicate them to the people —nor, as
their affluence is generally sufficient to surround
them with an abundance of other enjoyments, are
they an object of much pity.
But that the privacy of our ordinary wealthy and
middle classes should be invaded in a similar shape,
is an idea that could not get abroad without creating sensations of the most lively horror.  They
manage these things differently across the Atlantic,
and so here we have " over" fifty gentlemen's private collections ransacked and anatomized. If they
like it, we have no reason to complain, but rather
have occasion to rejoice in the valuable and interesting result.1
1 [The "very singular social condition" revealed by the publication of " The Private Libraries of New York " is merely one
in which there is a general disposition to be obliging, and communicative of information which may be useful or agreeable, and
also to do anything to contribute to the honor of the community of
which one is a member. Personal privacy is, I suppose, one of
the very first needs to the comfort of a gentleman; - at least of




CREATION  OF LIBRARIES.                 183
It is quite natural that their ways of esteeming a
collection should not be as our ways. There is a
our race; for with the Latin and the Oriental races it appears to
be not so much sought for. Certainly it could nowhere be more
jealously guarded than in this country, where intrusion into the
penetralia of a man's homne, be it high or humble, is an offence
which, among people of any decent sort, not to say among the
well-bred or the cultivated, is regarded as the most unpardonable, as it surely is the rarest, of social misdemeanors. Indeed,
the partial publicity of the daily life of people of rank in Europe is looked upon here as part of a dear price paid for their
privileges. But what invasion of privacy is there in having a
few hundred people told in a nicely printed book (what many
of them doubtless knew before) that in a certain room, their
more knowledge of which depends absolutely on their personal
relations with you, you have a fine Caxton or Aldus or Pannartz,
or five hundred or five thousand other good books which it will
gratify them to know are in their country and in their town, and
w]hich you will gladly let any properly introduced person, who
has occasion to do so, examine to his heart's content? It does
not draw a bolt, or lift a latch, or raise a curtain in your house;
or even relax for a moment those stronger, though invisible,
barriers which guard the approaches t0 your hearth-stone. As
our author says, and as we all know, in Great Britain "the
owners of great houses and great collections are doomed to
share them  with the public."  But great is a comparative
term. Great collections are great because most others around
them  are smaller than they are.  Now if the collections described in " The Private Libraries of New York " are the largest and most considerable in that city, of which the mere fact
that they were selected for description is evidence, it is somewhat
puzzling to discover the difference of social etiquette and individual feeling between New York and London which the publication of that book indicates. True, none of the possessors.
of those collections were dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts,.
barons, or even baronets.  Those varieties of our race are
not produced in this country.  If it be proper to describe
the collections of such people only, we are in this respect
in the condition of the cherub who was asked to sit down -




184                HIS FUNCTIONS.
story of a Cockney auctioneer, who had a location
in the back settlements to dispose of, advertising
that it was " almost entirely covered with fine old
timber." To many there would appear to be an
equal degree of verdant simplicity in mentioning
among the specialties and distinguishing features
of a collection - the Biographia and Encyclopedia
Britannica, Lowndes's Manual, The Quarterly and
we have not the wherewith. And as to mere publicity of
name, it so happens that their positions in the church, in law,
in science, letters, or society, had made nearly all of Dr.
Wynne's subjects almost as used to being talked about, and
having their " names spelled wrong in the newspapers," as the
Old World possessors of the great houses and the great collections
aforesaid. The few who were not in that category consented
for good-fellowship, and to be obliging. And perhaps from vanity? No. For the truth is that in most instances there was a
great reluctance, sometimes long persisted in, to consent to the
publication; but a feeling that it would seem churlish or overmodest to refuse, when others whose collections were of no more
importance had consented, finally overcame this obstacle. But
a certain pride did enter into the motives which produced " The
Private Libraries." It was municipal pride, however, not personal. The libraries of New York probably would never have
been described had not an account of those of Boston been previously given to the public. This was unwise on the part of
the men of Athens. It opened a seam in their armor. Because,
although no man in his senses would dream of denying the
claim of the three-hilled city to be either the Modern Athens.or the Hub of the Universe, or both, yet it was seen that in
this minor matter of private libraries New York was far ahead.'Thereupon men began to say to each other, like Sir Toby Belch,
when Sir Andrew Aguecheek discovers his excellence in capers:and back-tricks, "Wherefore are these things hid " And so
*they were revealed. The revelation probably, however, abated
none of the Bostonian pretension; as to the loftiness of which a
-Boston man once met with this illustration. Passing a negro




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.                185
Edinburgh Reviews, Boyle, Ducange, Moreri, Dodsley's Annual Register, Watt's  Bibliotheca, and
Diodorus Siculus.
The statement that there is in Dr. Francis's collection "; a complete set of the Recueil des Causes
C610bres, collected by Maurice Mejan, in eighteen
volumes - a scarce and valuable work " - would
throw any of our black-letter knight-errants into
Methodist church one Sunday morning, and hearing the tremendous shouting which always issues from those places, he
entered to make observation, and took his stand just within the
inner door. The black Boanerges certainly obeyed the injunction to cry aloud and spare not: his voice was stentorian, his
denunciation tremendous. After listening awhile, the white critic
became aware of the presence of a black brother, who had taken
a place by his side unnoticed. He was evidently a "colored
pusson " of the very highest respectability - his manner sedate'
and soft, his hat of a dignified breadth of brim, his coat a long
frock; and he wore those two articles which always give such
an irresistibly ludicrous appearance to the negro face - a white
cravat and silver spectacles. The gentleman turned to him, and
decorously praised the preacher. "Fair, Sar, ve-ry fair," was
the reply, with a look of patronizing approval which was almost
contemptuous. A decided rebuff. Presently the preacher became more uproarious than ever; his voice ran away with him,
and his arms flew like those of a windmill. "Now, my friend,
what do you think of that  Perhaps I can't judge; but it
really seems to me as if he was laying down that matter pretty
strongly. See how he stirs up the congregation, too." - " Ve-ry
good, Sar; ve-ry good. Man of talent, Sar. Nothing ve-ry remarkable;" - and then glancing over the rims of his barnacles,
and with an exquisite touch of serene condescension in the placid
circumflexion of his voice, "New York man, Sar; New York
man." I am half inclined to think that when " The Private Libraries " appeared, Boston said, in her heart at least, and with
some truth, "Nothing ve-ry remarkable. New York collections." - W.]




186                HIS FUNCTIONS.
convulsions of laughter.1 There are also some instances of perhaps not unnatural confusion between
one merely local British celebrity and another, as
where it is set forth that in Mr. Noyes's collection
"there  is a  fine  copy  of Sir Robert Walpole's
works, in five large quarto volumes, embellished
1 [Very likely; and the laughter, or at least the surprise, at
seeing a book which stands here for weeks and months on the
shelves of the old-book sellers, asking a buyer at a few dollars,
styled "scarce and valuable," would not be all on one side of
the water. The author has been led to a very false conclusion
as to our " ways of esteeming a collection " and our " inexperience in the ways of the craft" as it is practised in Europe. A
collection of books in New York or Boston is judged by the
very same canons which would be brought to the measurement'
of its value in London or Paris. The standard books are valued
for their standard value and their fitness to supply the general
wants of reading people; the illustrated books, for their beauty;
and the rare books, for their special significance in the history of
literature or printing, and for their rarity. Dr. Wynne has, with
such modest candor, disavowed, in his preface, any "pretensions
to nice bibliographical knowledge," that he may well claim exemption from criticism, especially at the hands of such a bibliophile as the author of this book. But it is quite fair to say
that in some of the articles in his "Private Libraries " there are
passages upon bibliography and history which do not represent
the acquaintance with those subjects which is general among
the persons for whom his very agreeable work was prepared. It
was received here as a fair and welcome exhibit of the principal
private collections of New York; but I am not aware that it
met with special attention on bibliographic grounds in any quarter; except that envious Boston intensified one gracious " Ve-ry
good for New York " by pointing out, blandly and briefly, evidences of the lack of that bibliographic knowledge the possession of which the author, with such creditable frankness, disavowed.  Indeed, "The Private Libraries" received more
attention in this book published at Edinburgh, than it did from
the whole periodical press of the United States. - W.]




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.                  187
with plates."   But under all this inexperience of
the ways of the craft as it is cultivated among us,
and unconsciousness of such small parochial distinctions as may hold between Sir Robert Walpole, our
Prime Minister, and Horace Walpole, the man of
letters and trinkets, the book contains a quantity of
valuable and substantial matter, both as a record of
rich stores of learning heaped up for the use of the
scholar, and marvellous varieties to dazzle the eyes
of the  mere  Dibdinite.   The  prevailing  feature
throughout is the lavish costliness and luxury of
these collections, several of which exceed ten thousand volumes.   Where collections have grown so
large that, on the principles already explained, their
increase is impeded, the owner's zeal and wealth seem
to have developed themselves in the lavish enshrining
and decorating of such things as were attainable.l
1 Take as a practical commentary on what has been said (p. 76)
on "illustrating" books, the following passage describing some
of the specialties of a collection, the general features of which
are described farther on:"But the crowning glory is a folio copy of Shakespeare, illustrated by the collector himself, with a prodigality of labor and
expense, that places it far above any similar work ever attempted. The letterpress of this great work is a choice specimen of Nicol's types, and each play occupies a separate portfolio. These are accompanied by costly engravings of landscapes, rare portraits, maps, elegantly colored plates of costumes,
and water-color drawings, executed by some of the best artists
of the day. Some of the plays have over 200 folio illustrations,
each of which is beautifully inlaid or mounted, and many of the
engravings are very valuable. Some of the landscapes, selected
from the oldest cosmographies known, illustrating the various
places mentioned in the pages of Shakespeare, are exceedingly
curious as well as valuable.




188                HIS FUNCTIONS.
The descriptions of a remorseless investigator like
this have a fresh individuality not to be found here,
where our habitual reserve prevents us from offering or enjoying a full, true, and particular account
of the goods of our neighbors, unless they are
brought to the hammer, - and then they have lost
half the charm which they possessed as the household gods of some one conspicuous by position or
character, and are little more estimable than other
common  merchandise.   It would  be difficult to
"In the historical plays, when possible, every character is
portrayed from authoritative sources, as old tapestries, monumental brasses, or illuminated works of the age, in well-executed drawings or recognized engravings.  There are in this
work a vast number of illustrations, in addition to a very numerous collection of water-color drawings.  In addition to the
thirty-seven plays, are two volumes devoted to Shakespeare's
life and times, one volume of portraits, one volume devoted to
distinguished Shakespearians, one to poems, and two to disputed
plays, the whole embracing a series of forty-two folio volumes,
and forming, perhaps, the most remarkable and costly monument, in this shape, ever attempted by a devout worshipper of
the Bard of Avon. The volume devoted to Shakespeare's portraits was purchased by Mr. Burton, at the sale of a gentleman's
library, who had spent many years in making the collection, and
includes various'effigies' unknown to many laborious collectors.
It contains upwards of one hundred plates, for the most part
proofs. The value of this collection may be estimated by the
fact, that a celebrated English collector recently offered its possessor ~60 for this single volume.
"In the reading-room directly beneath the main library, are a
number of portfolios of prints illustrative of the plays of Shakespeare, of a size too large to be included in the illustrated collection just noticed. There is likewise another copy of Shakespeare, based upon Knight's pictorial royal octavo, copiously illustrated by the owner; but although the prints are numerous,




CREATION  OF LIBRARIES.                189
find, among the countless books about books produced by us in the old country, any in which the
bent of individual tastes and propensities is so distinctly represented  in tangible symbols; and  the
reality of the elucidation is increased by the sort
of innocent surprise with which the historian approaches each "lot," evidently as a first acquaintance, about whom he inquires and obtains all available particulars, good-humoredly communicating
them in bold detail to his reader. Here follows
they are neither as costly nor as rare as those contained in the
large folio copy.
"Among the curiosities of the Shakespeare collection are a
number of copies of the disputed plays, printed during his lifetime, with the name of Shakespeare as their author. It is remarkable, if these plays were not at least revised by Shakespeare, that no record of a contradiction of their authorship should
be found. It is not improbable that many plays written by
others were given to Shakespeare to perform in his capacity as
a theatrical manager, requiring certain alterations in order to
adapt them to the use of the stage, which were arranged by his
cunning and skilful hand, and these plays afterward found their
way into print, with just sufficient of his emendations to allow
his authorship of them, in the carelessness in which he held his
literary fame, to pass uncontradicted by him.
" There is a copy of an old play of the period, with manuscript annotations, and the name of Shakespeare written on the
title-page. It is either the veritable signature of the poet, or an
admirably imitated forgery. Mr. Burton inclined to the opinion
that the work once belonged to Shakespeare, and that the signature is genuine. If so, it is probably the only scrap of his handwriting on this continent. This work is not included in the list
given of Ireland's library, the contents of which were brought
into disrepute by the remarkable literary forgeries of the son,
but stands forth peculiar and unique, and furnishes much room
for curious speculation." - (148-51.)




190             HIS FUNCTIONS.
a sketch - and surely a tempting one - of a New
York interior:
" Mr. Burton's library contains nearly sixteen
thousand volumes. Its proprietor had constructed
for its accommodation and preservation a threestory fire-proof building, about thirty feet square,
which is isolated from  all other buildings, and is
connected with his residence in Iudson Street by
a conservatory gallery.  The chief library-room
occupies the upper floor of this building, and is
about twenty-five feet in height. Its ceiling presents a series of groined rafters, after the old English style, in the centre of which rises a dome-skylight of stained glass.  The sides of the library
are fitted up with thirty-six oak book-cases of a
Gothic pattern, which entirely surround it, and
are nine feet in height. The space between the
ceiling and the book-cases is filled with paintings,
for the most part of large size, and said to be. of
value. Specimens of armor and busts of distinguished authors decorate appropriate compartments, and in a prominent niche, at the head of
the apartment, stands a full-length statue of Shakespeare, executed by Thom, in the same style as the
Tam o' Shanter and Old Mortality groups of this
Scotch sculptor.
" The great specialty of the library is its Shakespeare collection; but, although very extensive and
valuable, it by no means engrosses the entire library, which contains a large number of valuable
works in several departments of literature.




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.         191
" The number of lexicons and dictionaries is
large, and among the latter may be found all the
rare old English works so valuable for reference.
Three book-cases are devoted to serials, which contain many of the standard reviews and magazines.
One case is appropriated to voyages and travels,
in which are found many valuable ones. In another are upwards of one hundred volumes of
table-talk, and numerous works on the fine arts
and bibliography.  One book-case is devoted to
choice works on America, among which is Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia Totius Orbis Regionum, published in folio at Basle in 1537, which
contains full notes of Columbus, Vespucci, and
other early voyagers. Another department contains a curious catalogue of authorities relating to
Crime and Punishment; a liberal space is devoted
to Facetie, another to American Poetry, and also
one to Natural and Moral Philosophy. The standard works of Fiction, Biography, Theology, and
the Drama, are all represented.
" There is a fair collection of classical authors,
many of which are of Aldine and Elzevir editions.
Among the rarities in this department is a folio
copy of Plautus, printed at Venice in 1518, and
illustrated with woodcuts."
The author thus coming upon a Roman writer of
plays, named Plautus, favors us with an account of
him, which it is unnecessary to pursue, since it by
no means possesses the interest attached to his stilllife sketches. Let us pass on and take a peep at




192                HIS FUNCTIONS.
the collection of Chancellor Kent, known in this
country as the author of Kent's Commentaries 1: -
" To a lawyer, the Chancellor's written remarks
on his books are, perhaps, their most interesting
feature. He studied pen in hand, and all of his
books contain his annotations, and some are literary curiosities. His edition of Blackstone's Commentaries is the first American edition, printed in
1 [Again the author errs. The library in question was that
of the late Judge Kent, the son of Chancellor Kent. The library
of the son naturally included that of the father. It is, perhaps,
too much to expect that even so intelligent and well-informed a
subject of Her Majesty as the writer of this book should know
that Chancellor Kent died in 1847, at the advanced age of eightyfour years; but still the Chancellor was known so long ago
throughout Great Britain as the author of Kent's Commentaries, that it would seem as if a moment's reflection would have
decided the question rightly; although the article itself settled
the point upon the best authority - that of Judge Kent himself.
2For there can be no impropriety in saying here, what has long
been generally known in literary circles, that in the preparation
of several of the articles in " The Private Libraries," the author
had the advantage of assistance from the pens of the owners of
the collections, and that in two or three instances the whole, or
nearly the whole, article was thus written, subject, of course, to
his after supervision. The description of Judge Kent's library
bears unmistakable marks of his own hand. The passage, quoted
by our author, in which it is remarked as to the prison and scaffold literature, (and, by the way, why should there not be a club
- the Selwyn, of course - for the reprinting of this?) that "the
Chancellor is not responsible for this part of the library, which
owes its completeness to the morbid taste of his successor," is
one which Dr. Wynne is too courteous and too good-natured to
have written; but the sly humor of writing it about himself is
perfectly in Judge Kent's manner. This library, though marshalled among those of New York, was at Judge Kent's house
at Fishkill Landing, seventy-five miles away.- W.]




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.           193
Philadelphia in 1771. It is creditable to the press
of that time, and is overlaid with annotations, showing how diligently the future American commentator studied the elegant work of his English predecessor. The general reader will find still more
interest in the earlier judicial reports of the State
of New York, printed while he was on the bench..
He will find not merely legal notes, but biographical memoranda of many of the distinguished judges
and lawyers who lived at the commencement of
the century, and built up the present system of
laws.
" In proceeding from the legal to the miscellaneous part of the library, the visitor's attention will,
perhaps, be attracted by an extensive and curious
collection of the records of criminal law.  Not
merely the English state trials and the French
causes celebres are there, but the criminal trials
of Scotland and of America, and detached publications of remarkable cases, Newgate Calendars,
Malefactors' Register, Chronicles of Crime, with
ghastly prints of Newgate and Old Bailey, with
their executions.  The Chancellor is not responsible for this part of the library, which owes its completeness to the morbid taste of his successor, who
defends the collection as best illustrating the popular morals and manners of every period, and contends that fiction yields in interest to the gloomy
dramas of real life."
The practice attributed to the Chancellor of annotating his books is looked on by collectors as in
13




194            HIS FUNCTIONS.
the general case a crime which should be denied
benefit of clergy. What is often said, however, of
other crimes may be said of this, that if the perpetrator be sufficiently illustrious, it becomes a virtue.
If Milton, for instance, had thought fit to leave his
autograph annotations on the first folio Shakespeare,
the offence would not only have been pardoned
but applauded, greatly to the pecuniary benefit of
any one so fortunate as to discover the treasure.
But it would be highly dangerous for ordinary
people to found on such an immunity. I remember being once shown by an indignant collector a
set of utterly and hopelessly destroyed copies of
rare tracts connected with the religious disputes of
Queen Elizabeth's day, each inlaid and separately
bound in a thin volume in the finest morocco, with
the title lengthways along the back. These had
been lent to a gentleman who deemed himself a
distinguished poet, and he thought proper to write
on the margin the sensations caused within him by
the perusal of some of the more striking passages,
certifying the genuineness of his autograph by his
signature at full length in a bold distinct hand.
He, worthy man, deemed that he was adding
greatly to the value of the rarities; but had he
beheld the owner's face on occasion of the discovery, he would have been undeceived.
There are in Dr. Wynne's book descriptions, not
only of libraries according to their kind, but according to their stage of growth, from those which, as
the work of a generation or two, have reached from




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.          195
ten to fifteen thousand, to the collections still in
their youth, such as Mr. Lorimer Graham's of five
thousand volumes, rich in early editions of British
poetry, and doubtless, by this time, still richer,
since its owner was lately here collecting early
works on the literature of Scotland, and other
memorials of the land of his fathers. Certainly,
however, the most interesting of the whole is the
library of the Rev. Dr. Magoon, " an eminent and
popular divine of the Baptist Church."  He en,
tered on active life as an operative bricklayer.
There are, it appears, wall-plates extant, and not
a few, built by his hands, and it was only by saving the earnings these brought to him that he
could obtain an education.  When an English
mechanic finds out that he has a call to the ministry, we can easily figure the grim ignorant fanatical ranter that comes forth as the result. If haply
he is able to read, his library will be a few lean
sheepskin-clad volumes, such as Boston's Crook
in the Lot, Fisher's Marrow of Modern Divinity,
Booth's Apples of Gold, Bolton's Saint's Enriching Examination, and Halyburton's Great Concern. The bricklayer, however, was endowed
with the heavenly gift of the high msthetic, which
no birth or breeding can secure, and threw himself
into that common ground where art and religion
meet -the literature of Christian medieval art.
Things must, however, have greatly changed
among our brethren since the days of Cotton
Mather, or even of Jonathan Edwards, when a




196             HIS FUNCTIONS.
person in Dr. Magoon's position could embellish
his private sanctuary in this fashion.
" The chief characteristic of the collection is its
numerous works on the history, literature, and
theory of art in general, and of Christian architecture in particular. There is scarcely a church,
abbey, monastery, college, or cathedral; or picture, statue, or illumination, prominent in Christian art, extant in Italy, Germany, France, or the
British Islands, that is not represented either
by original drawings or in some other graphic
form.
" In addition to these works, having especial
reference to Christian art, are many full sets of
folios depicting the leading galleries of ancient,
medieval, and modern art in general.  Some of
these, as the six elephant folios on the Louvre,
are in superb bindings; while many others, among
which are the Dresden Gallery and Retzsch's Outliles, derive an additional value from once having
formed a part of the elegant collection of William
Reginald Courtenay.
" But what renders this collection particularly
valuable, is its large number of original drawings
by eminent masters which accompany the written
and engraved works. Amongst these are two large
sepia drawings, by Amici, of the Pantheon and St.
Peter's at Rome. These drawings were engraved
and published with several others by Ackermann.
Both the originals, and the engravings executed
from them, are in the collection. The original




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.                 197
view near the Basilica of St. Marco, by Samuel
Prout, the engraving of which is in Finden's Byron, and the interior of St. Marco, by Luke Price,
the engraving of which is in Price's Venice Illustrated, grace the collection. There is likewise a
superb general view of Venice, by Wyld; a fine
exterior view  of Rheims Cathedral, by Buckley;
an exterior view of St. Peter's at Caen, by Charles
Vacher; and the interior of St. Germain des Pres
at Paris, by Duval."
The early history of the American settlements is
naturally the object around which many of these
collections cluster; but the scraps of this kind of
literature which have been secured have a sadly impoverished aspect in comparison with the luxurious
stores which American money has attracted from
the Old World.1   Here one is forcibly reminded
1 "This collection [Mr. Menzies'] contains four thousand
volumes, and is for the most part in the English language. Its
chief specialty consists in works on American history and early
American printed books. Among the latter may be mentioned
a series of the earliest works issued from the press in New York.
Of these, is A Letter of Advice to a Young Gentleman, by R.
L., printed and sold by William Bradford, in New York, 1696.
Richard Lyon, the author, came early to this country, and officiated as a private tutor to a young English student at Cambridge, to whom the letter of advice was written. It is undoubtedly the earliest work which issued from the press in New York,
and is so extremely rare, that it is questionable whether another
copy is to be found in the State. There is a collection of tracts,
comprised in seven volumes, written by the Rev. George Keith,
and published by Bradford, at New York, 1702-4. Keith was
born in Scotland, and settled in East Jersey, in the capacity of
surveyor-general, in 1682. The several tracts in the collection
are on religious subjects, and are controversial in their char



198                HIS FUNCTIONS.
of those elements in the old-established libraries of
Europe which no wealth or zeal can achieve elsewhere, because the commodity is not in the marlket.
America had just one small old library, and the
lamentation over the loss of this ewe-lamb is touching evidence of her poverty in such possessions.
The Harvard Library dates from the year 1638.
In 1764 the college buildings were burned, and
though books are not easily consumed, yet the
small collection of five thousand volumes was easily
overwhelmed  in  the general ruin.   So were destroyed many books from  the early presses of the
mother country, and many of the firstlings of the
transatlantic printers; and though its bulk was but
that of an ordinary country squire's collection, the
loss has been always considered national and irreparable.
It is, after all, a rather serious considerationwhich it never seems as yet to have occurred to any
acter. As early specimens of printing, and as models of the
manner in which the religious controversies of the day were
conducted, they are both instructive and curious. In addition
to these is a work entitled The Rebuker Rebuked, by Daniel
Leeds, 1703; A Sermon preached at Kingston, in Jamaica, by
William  Corbin, 1703; The Great Mystery of Foxeraft, by
Daniel Leeds, 1705; A Sermon preached at Trinity Church,
in New York, by John Sharp, 1706; An Alarm Sounded to the
Inhabitants of the World, by Bath Bowers, 1709; and Lex Parliamentaria, 1716. All the above works were printed by Bradford, the earliest New York publisher, and one of the earliest
printers in America. They constitute, perhaps, the most complete collection in existence of the publications of this early
typographer.  The whole are in an excellent state of preservation, and are nearly, if not quite, unique."




CREATION  OF LIBRARIES.                199
one to revolve —how entirely the new States of the
West and the South seem  to be cut off from  the
literary resources which the Old World possesses
in her old libraries. Whatever light lies hidden
beneath the bushel in these venerable institutions,
seems forever denied to the students and inquirers
of the new empire rising in the antipodes, and consequently to the minds of the people at large who
receive impressions from students and inquirers.
Books can be reprinted, it is true; but where is
the likelihood that seven hundred thousand old volumes will be reprinted to put the Astorian Library
on a par with the Imperial? Well, perhaps some
quick and cheap way will be found of righting it
all when we have got a tunnel to Australia, and
are shot through it by something only a shade less
instantaneous than the electric telegraph.1
In the mean time, what a lesson do these matters impress on us of the importance of preserving
1 [These apprehensions of a narrow literary future for us of
the New World are entertained in a truly philosophic and kindly
spirit. But they are based, I think, on an exaggerated estimate
of our privations. Not that the author overrates the value of
the real treasures which have been heaped up by Time on the
other continent; but that he, perhaps, rates much as treasure
which is really rubbish, and regards it as more inaccessible to
us than it actually is. And although his figures are correct, they
leave a very false impression. Choosing, very properly, for his
illustration the greatest library of the world, the Imperial Library at Paris, (poor great library! once Royal, then National,
then Imperial, then Royal again, again National, and again Imperial; and all this within the memory of one man!) he asks, What
is the likelihood that 700,000 old volumes will be reprinted to
put the Astor Library on a par with it? There is none. But




200                 HIS FUNCTIONS.
old books!  Government and legislation have clone
little, if anything, in Britain, towards this object,
let us see. The British Ambassador at Paris ascertained in 1850
that the number of " printed books " in the great French library
was 700,000. But were all these rare, not to say unique, or
scarce, or " old volumes," or even out of print? No man who
knows anything of the history of books could seriously entertain
the question. These 700,000 volumes, one half of which were
acquired in the present century, (see Edwards's "Memoirs of
Libraries," Vol. II., p. 281,) represent the literature of the whole
world, from the invention of printing to the year 1850. There are
not only duplicates and triplicates and quadruplicates, but whole
editions of most of them scattered over the face of the earth; and
our full share, at least, is in this country. But then there are
uniques and extremely rare volumes, which can be found only
there and in two or three other places? Certainly; and many of
them are intrinsically of what may be called priceless value. But
I venture the conjecture, that, casting aside those multitudinous
books which, in the words of a British critic, "are rare now because they were always worthless," there are not one thousand
printed volumes in the Imperial Library, the Library of the British Museum, and the Bodleian together, which have not yet
been reprinted, and which are so rare that we may not reasonably expect to have a copy or copies of them in this country
within the next fifty years. And as to the reprinting of a thousand volumes, if it were found very desirable for the interests of
literature here, a few gentlemen would meet together and settle,that matter very quickly; always supposing that our friends of
-the Museum, the Bodleian, and the Imperial, did not refuse permission to a sharing, even without a diminution, of their treas-.ures. The great and ever unapproachable superiority of the'Imperial Library, that of the Vatican, the British Museum, and
~a few others of their class, is in their ancient manuscripts, gathered from  monasteries and other like depositories throughout
Europe, in Syria, the Levant, and Egypt.  These will never be
printed; and although it is possible that in the advancement
of art, and the more doubtful increase and spread of international
comity and fellowship in letters, a few of them may be photographed, still it seems quite certain that this mountain cannot




CREA TION  OF LIBRARIES.               201
beyond the separate help that may have been extended to individual public libraries, and the Copycome to Mahomet. But it is not so clear that Mahomet cannot
go to the mountain. It would seem as if Sanscrit were one of
the chief among the fields of literature from which we of the
New World are shut out by our position. And yet I have been
told on European authority that the one man to whom no other
oriental scholar can teach more Sanscrit is native here, and is
now living in New England. One of my own friends, on a casual
meeting, the first in two or three years, spoke quite slightingly
of studies in English literature of the Elizabethan period, which
he heard I was pursuing. He thought that they had had their
day, and that Shakespeare was obsolete. " And what have you
been about this long time? " I asked; for I knew that he was
bookish. "Oh, I've been giving myself up heart and soul to
Coptic. I've been studying in Paris. I shall go to Egypt very
soon."  He could afford it; and he went before the month was
out. But was it not left for Prescott of Massachusetts to spread
out manuscripts before closed to the world, and first exhibit in
their true aspect the ambiguous glories of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the darker, sterner record of the deeds
of Cortez? Did not Motley of New York in like manner throw
a flood of new light upon the struggles for liberty in the Netherlands? Has not the first truly philosophical history of the
development of our language just been written by George P.
Marsh of Vermont, now United States Minister at Turin? and
is not the principal text-book for the study of English now used
in Great Britain a mere reprint, with an Introduction and
notes by the British editor, of the same thorough and thoughtful
scholar's course of lectures, first delivered and printed in New
York? We do not boast of these things, or of others of their
kind, or even silently over-estimate their importance, which we
take at European rating. Yet we may venture to ask, Have
British scholars, with all their advantages and superiority, accomplished within the same time and in similar fields, anything so
very much better? It yet remains, however, that even if these
fruits of research were far more numerous and important than
they are, they are not those results of the explorations of special
scholarship into.the wilderness of codices and palimpsests, which




202              HIS FUNCTIONS.,right Act deposits.   Of general measures, it is
possible to point out some which have been injurious, by leading to the dispersal or destruction of
books.  The house and window  duties have done
this to a large extent.  As this statement may not
be quite self-evident, a word in explanation may be
appropriate. The practice of the department hlaving charge of the Assessed Taxes has been, when
any furniture was left in an unoccupied house, to
levy the duty - to exempt only houses entirely
empty. It was a consequence of this that when,
by minority, fanily decay, or otherwise, a mansionhouse had to be shut up, there was an inducement
entirely to gut it of its contents, including the
library. The same cause, by the way, has been
more destructive still to furniture, and may be said
to have lost to our posterity the fashions of a generation or two.  Tables, chairs, and cabinets first
grow unfashionable, and then old; in neither stage
have they any friends who will comfort or support
them - they are still worse off than books. But
then comes an after-stage, in which they revive as
antiquities, and become exceeding precious.  As
Pompeiis, however, are rare in the world, the chief
repositories of antique furniture have been manperhaps were, after all, what the author had specially in mind.
And of that work we shall not do too much. If any one of us
is bent upon it, be sure that it will go hard but he shall find a
way of doing it. Those who are impelled to such tasks, because
they are born to no other, will be put in the way of their desire.
And these will be enough. It is not well to have too many
young men think Shakespeare obsolete, and go down into Egypt




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.               203
sions shut up for a generation or two, which, after
more fashions than generations have passed away,
are reopened to the light of day, either in consequence of the revival of the fortunes of their old
possessors, or of their total extinction and the entry
of new owners. How the house and window duties
disturbed this silent process by which antiques were
created is easily perceived.
One service our Legislature has done for the
preservation of books, in the copies which require
to be deposited under the Copyright Act at Stationers' Hall for the privileged libraries.   True,
this has been effected somewhat in the shape of a
burden upon authors, for the benefit of that posterity which has done no more for them  specially
than it has for other people of the present generation. But in its present modified shape the burden
should not be grudged, in consideration of the magnitude of the benefit to the people of the future -
a benefit, the full significance of which it probably
requires a little  consideration  to  estimate.  The
right of receiving a copy of every book from  Stationers' Hall has generally been looked on as a
benefit to the library receiving it.  The benefit,
however, was but lightly esteemed by some of these
to devote themselves heart and soul to Coptic. The great mass
of us, including the intelligent and the cultivated, can be better
occupied within our own borders in so living and laboring as
simple citizens of the Republic, that our example may hasten
the time when peace, truth, justice, and good-will shall reign,
and only they shall reign, -as when they do reign they must
reign, - throughout all the world. - W.]




204               LHIS FUNCTIONS.
institutions, the directors of which represented that
they were thus pretty well supplied with the unsalable  rubbish, while  the  valuable  publications
slipped past them; and, on the whole, they would
sell their privilege for a very small annual sum, to
enable them to go into the market and buy such
books, old and new, as they might prefer. The
view  adopted  by the law, however, was, that the
depositing of these books created an obligation if it
conferred a privilege, the institution receiving them
having no right to part with them, but being bound
to preserve them as a record of the literature of the
age.1
1 I am not aware that in the blue-books, or any other source
of public information, there is any authenticated statement of
the quantity of literature which the privileged libraries receive
through the Copyright Act.  The information would afford a
measure of the fertility of the British press. It is rather curious, that for a morsel of this kind of ordinary modern statistics,
one must have recourse to so scholarly a work as the quarto volume of the Prcefationes et Epistolce Editionibus Principibus Auctorum Veterute prcepositce, curante Bericth Botfield, A. I. The editor
of that noble quarto obtained a return from Mr. Winter Jones,
of the number of deposits in the British Museum from 1814 to
1860. Counting the "pieces," as they are called —that is, every
volume, pamphlet, page of music, and other publication -the
total number received in 1814 was 378. It increased by steady
gradation until 1851, when it reached 9871. It then got an impulse, from a determination more strictly to enforce the Act,
and next year the number rose to 13,934, and in 1859 it reached
28,807. In this great mass, the number of books coming forth
complete in one volume or more is roundly estimated at 5000,
but a quantity of the separate numbers and parts which go to
make up the total, are elementary portions of books, giving
forth a certain number of completed volumes annually. From
the same authority, it appears that the total number of publica



CREATION  OF LIBRARIES.                205
If the rule come ever to be thoroughly enforced,
it will then come to pass that of every book that is
printed in Britain, good or bad, five copies shall be
preserved in the shelves of so many public libraries,
slumbering there in peace, or tossed about by impatient readers, as the case may be.  For the latter
there need not perhaps be much anxiety; it is for
the sake of those addicted to slumbering in peaceful
obscurity that this refuge is valuable. There is thus
at least a remnant saved from the relentless trunkmaker. If the day of resuscitation from the long
slumber should arrive, we know where to find the
tions which issued from the French press in 1858 was estimated
at 13,000; but this includes "sermons, pamphlets, plays, pieces
of music, and engravings."  In the same year the issues from
the German press, Austria not included, are estimated at 10,000,
all apparently actual volumes, or considerable pamphlets. Austria in 1855 published 4678 volumes and parts. What a contrast
to all this it must be to live in sleepy Norway, where the annual
literary prowess produces 146 volumes! In Holland the annual
publications approach 2000. " During the year 1854, 861 works
in the Russian language, and 451 in foreign languages, were
printed in Russia; besides 2940 scientific and literary treatises
in the different periodicals." The number of works anywhere
published is, however, no indication of the number of books put
in circulation, since some will have to be multiplied by tens,
others by hundreds, and others by thousands. We know that
there is an immense currency of literature in the American
States, yet, of the quantity of literature issued there, the Publishers' Circular for February, 1859, gives the following meagre
estimate: - " There were 912 works published in America during 1858. Of these 177 were reprints from England, 35 were
new editions, and 10 were translations from the French or German. The new American works thus number only 690, and
among them are included sermons, pamphlets, and letters, whereas the reprints are in most cases bond fide books."




206            HIS FUNCTIONS.
book —in a privileged library. The recollection
just now occurs to me of a man of unquestionable
character and scholarship, who wrote a suitable and
intelligent book on an important subject, and at his
own expense had it brought into the world by a
distinguished publisher, prudently intimating on
the title-page that he reserved the right of translation.  Giving the work all due time to find its
way, he called at the Row, exactly a year after the
day of publication, to ascertain the result.  He
was presented with a perfectly succinct account of
charge and discharge, in which he was credited with
three copies sold. Now, he knew that his family
had bought two copies, but he never could find out
who it was that had bought the third.  The one
mind into which his thoughts had thus passed, remained ever mysteriously undiscoverable. Whether
or not he consoled himself with the reflection that
what might have been diffused over many was concentrated in one, it is consolatory to others to reflect that such a book stands on record in the privileged libraries, to come forth to the world if it be
wanted.
Nor is the resuscitation of a book unsuited to its
own age, but suited to another, entirely unexampled. That beautiful poem called Albania was reprinted by Leyden, from a copy preserved somewhere: so utterly friendless had it been in its
obscurity, that the author's history, and even his
name, were unknown; and though it at once excited the high admiration of Scott, no scrap of in



CREATION OF LIBRARIES.              207
telligence concerning it could be discovered in any
quarter contemporary with its first publication.
The Discourse on Trade by Roger North, the author of the amusing Lives of Lord-Keeper Guildford and his other two brothers, was lately reprinted
from a copy in the British Museum, supposed to be
the only one existing.  Though neglected in its
own day, it has been considered worthy of attention in this, as promulgating some of the principles
of our existing philosophy of trade.  On the same
principle, some rare tracts on political economy and
trade were lately reprinted by a munificent nobleman, who thought the doctrines contained in them
worthy of preservation and promulgation.  The
Spirit of Despotism, by Vicesimus Knox, was reprinted, at a time when its doctrines were popular, from a single remaining copy: the book,
though instructive, is violent and declamatory, and
it is supposed that its author discouraged or endeavored to suppress its sale after it was printed.1
In the public duty of creating great libraries, and
generally of preserving the literature of the world
from being lost to it, the collector's or book-hunter's
services are great and varied. In the first place,
many of the great public libraries have been absolute donations of the treasures to which some enI once heard an odd anecdote about this book. A traveller
who had it in his luggage, passing the Austrian frontier, was,
much to his astonishment, allowed to retain it. To his equal
astonishment, the book beside it, being Combe on the Constitution of Man, was prohibited - the word " constitution " was
sufficient to condemn this profound volume.




208            HIS FUNCTIONS.
thusiastic literary sportsman has devoted his life
and fortune. Its gradual accumulation has been
the great solace and enjoyment of his active days;
he has beheld it, in his old age, a splendid monument of enlightened exertion, and he resolves that,
when he can no longer call it his own, it shall
preserve the relics of past literature for ages yet
to come, and form a centre whence scholarship
and intellectual refinement shall diffuse themselves
around. We can see this influence in its most specific and material shape, perhaps, by looking round
the reading-room  of the British Museum - that
great manufactory of intellectual produce, where
so many heads are at work.  The beginning of
this great institution, as everybody knows, was in
the fifty thousand volumes collected by Sir Hans
Sloane - a wonderful achievement for a private
gentleman at the beginning of the last century.
When George III. gave it the libraries of the kings
of England, it gained, as it were, a better start still
by absorbing collections which had begun before
Sloane was born - those of Cranmer, Prince Henry, and Casaubon.  The Ambrosian Library at
Milan was the private collection of Cardinal Borromeo, bequeathed by him to the world. It reached
forty thousand volumes ere he died, and these formed
a library which had arisen in free, natural, and symmetrical growth, insomuch as, having fed it during
his whole life, it began with the young and economic efforts of youth and poverty, and went on
accumulating in bulk and in the costliness of its




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.             209
contents as succeeding years brought wealth and
honors to the great prelate. What those merchant
princes, the Medici, did for the Laurentian Library
at Florence is part of history. Old Cosmo, who
had his mercantile and political correspondents in
all lands, made them also his literary agents, who
thus sent him goods too precious to be resold even
at a profit. "H Ie corresponded," says Gibbon, " at
once with Cairo and London, and a cargo of Indian
spices and Greek books were often imported by the
same vessel." The Bodleian started with a collection which had cost Sir Thomas Bodley, ~10,000,
and it was augmented from  time to time by the
absorption of tributary influxes of the same kind.'
In many instances the collectors, whose stores
have thus gone to the public, have merely followed
their book-hunting propensities, without having the
merit of framing the ultimate destiny of their collections, but in others the intention of doing benefit
to the world has added zest and energy to the chase.
Of this class there is one memorable and beautiful
instance in Richard of Bury, Bishop of Durham,
who lived and labored so early as the days of Edward III., and has left an autobiographical sketch
infinitely valuable, as at once informing us of the
social habits, and letting us into the very inner life,
of the highly endowed student and the affluent col1 The most complete mass of information which we probably
possess in the English language about the history of libraries,
both home and foreign, is in the two octavos called Memoirs of
Libraries, including a HIandbook of Library Concerns, by Edward Edwards.
14




210            HIS FUNCTIONS.
lector of the fourteenth century.  His little book,
called Philobiblion, was first printed at Cologne in
the fifteenth century.  An English translation of it
was published in 1882. It is throughout adorned
with the gentle and elevated nature of the scholar,
and derives a still nobler lustre from the beneficent
purpose to which the author destined the literary
relics which it was the enjoyment of his life to collect and study. Being endowed with power and
wealth, and putting to himself the question, "W What
can I render to the Lord for all that he bath conferred on me? " he found an answer in the determination of smoothing the path of the poor and ardent
student, by supplying him with the means of study.
"' Behold," he says, " a herd of outcasts rather than
of elect scholars meets the view of our contemplations, in which God the artificer, and nature his
handmaid, have planted the roots of the best morals
and most celebrated sciences.  But the penury of
their private affairs so oppresses them, being opposed by adverse fortune, that the fruitful seeds of
virtue, so productive in the unexhausted field of
youth, unmoistened by their wonted dews, are compelled to wither. Whence it happens, as Boetius
says, that bright virtue lies hid in obscurity, and
the burning lamp is not put under a bushel, but is
utterly extinguished for want of oil. Thus the
flowery field in spring is ploughed up before harvest; thus wheat gives way to tares, the vine degenerates to woodbine, and the olive grows wild
and unproductive."  Keenly alive to this want, he




CREATION OF LIBRARIES.          211
resolved to devote himself, not merely to supply to
the hungry the necessary food, but to impart to
the poor and ardent scholar the mental sustenance
which might possibly enable him to burst the bonds
of circumstance, and, triumphing over his sordid
lot, freely communicate to mankind the blessings
which it is the function of cultivated genius to
distribute.
The Bishop was a great and powerful man, for
he went over Europe commissioned as the spiritual adviser of the great conqueror, Edward III.
Wherever he went on public business - to Rome,
France, or the other states of Europe - " on tedious embassies and in perilous times," he carried
about with him  " that fondness for books which
many waters could not extinguish," and gathered
up all that his power, his wealth, and his vigilance
brought within his reach.  In Paris he becomes
quite ecstatic: "Oh blessed God of Gods in Zion!
what a rush of the glow of pleasure rejoiced our
heart as often as we visited Paris -the Paradise
of the world! There we longed to remain, where,
on account of the greatness of our love, the days
ever appeared to us to be few. There are delightful libraries in cells redolent of aromatics- there
flourishing greenhouses of all sorts of volumes: there
academic meads trembling with the earthquake of
Athenian peripatetics pacing up and down: there
the promontories of Parnassus and the porticos of
the stoics."
The most powerful instrument in his policy was




212             HIS FUNCTIONS.
encouraging and bringing round him as dependents
and followers, the members of the mendicant orders
— the laborers called to the vineyard in the eleventh hour, as he calls them. These he set to cater
for him, and he triumphantly asks, "Among so
marly of the keenest hunters, what leveret could lie
hid? What fry could evade the hook, the net, or
the trawl of these men? From the body of divine
law down to the latest controversial tract of the
day, nothing could escape the notice of these scrutinizers." In further revelations of his method he
says, "When, indeed, we happened to turn aside
to the towns and places where the aforesaid paupers
had convents, we were not slack in visiting their
chests and other repositories of books; for there,
amidst the deepest poverty, we found the most exalted riches treasured up; there, in their satchels
and caskets, we discovered not only the crumbs
that fell from the master's table for the little dogs,
but, indeed, the shew-bread without leaven - the
bread of angels containing all that is delectable."
He specially marks the zeal of the Dominicans as
preachers; and in exulting over his success in the
field, he affords curious glimpses into the ways of
the various humble assistants who were glad to lend
themselves to the hobby of one of the most powerful prelates of his day.1
1 "Indeed, although we had obtained abundance both of old
and new works, through an extensive communication with all
the religious orders, yet we must in justice extol tile Preachers
with a special commendation in this respect; for we found them,




CREATION  OF LIBRARIES.                 213
The manner in which Robert of Bury dedicated
his stores to the intellectual nurture of the poor
above all other religious devotees, ungrudging of their most acceptable communications, and overflowing with a certain divine
liberality; we experienced them not to be selfish hoarders, but
meet professors of enlightened knowledge. Besides all the opportunities already touched upon, we easily acquired the notice
of the stationers and librarians, not only within the provinces of
our native soil, but of those dispersed over the kingdoms of
FErance, Germany, and Italy, by the prevailing power of money;
no distance whatever impeded, no fury of the sea deterred them;
nor was cash wanting for their expenses, when they sent or
brought us the wished-for books; for they knew to a certainty
that their hopes reposed in our bosoms could not be disappointed,
but ample redemption, with interest, was secure with us. Lastly,
our common captivatrix of the love of all men (money), did not
neglect the rectors of country schools, nor the pedagogues of
clownish boys, but rather, when we had leisure to enter their
little gardens and paddocks, we culled redolent flowers upon the
surface, and dug up neglected roots (not, however, useless to the
studious), and such coarse digests of barbarism, as with the gift
of eloquence might be made sanative to the pectoral arteries.
Amongst productions of this kind, we found many most worthy
of renovation, which, when the foul rust was skilfully polished
off, and the mask of old age removed, deserved to be once more
remodelled into comely countenances, and which we, having
applied a sufficiency of the needful means, resuscitated for an
exemplar of future resurrection, having in some measure restored them to renewed soundness. Moreover, there was always
about us in our halls no small assemblage of antiquaries, scribes,
bookbinders, correctors, illuminators, and, generally, of all such
persons as were qualified to labor advantageously in the service
of books.
"To conclude. All of either sex, of every degree, estate, ordignity, whose pursuits were in any way connected with books,.
could, with a knock, most easily open the door of our heart, and
find a convenient reposing place in our bosom. We so admittedi
all who brought books, that neither the multitude of first-comers;




214               HIS FUNCTIONS.
scholar, was by converting them  into a library for
Durham   College, which  merged  into  Trinity of
Oxford.  It would have been a pleasant thing to
look upon the actual collection of manuscripts
which awakened so much recorded zeal and tenderness in the great ecclesiastic of five hundred
years ago; but in later troubles they became dispersed, and all that seems to be known of their
whereabouts is, that some of them  are in the library
of Baliol.1  Another eminent English prelate made
a worthy, but equally ineffectual, attempt to found
a great university library.  This was the Rev. John
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who gave what was
called  "the  noblest library in England" to the
newly-founded college of St. John's.  It was not a
bequest. To make his gift secure, it was made
over directly to the college, but as he could not
part with his favorites while lie lived, he borrowed
the whole back for life.  This is probably the most
extensive book loan ever negotiated; but the Reformation, and his tragic destiny, were coming on
apace, and the books were lost both to himself and
his favorite college.2
could produce a fastidiousness of the last, nor the benefit conferred yesterday be prejudicial to that of to-day. Wherefore, as
we were continually resorted to by all the aforesaid persons, as
to a sort of adamant attractive of books, the desired accession of
the vessels of science, and a multifarious flight of the best volumnes were made to us. And this is what we undertook to relate
at large in the present chapter."
1 Edwards on Libraries, vol. i. p. 586.
2 Ibid. p. 609.




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE. 215
Cije Jly rcrvation of 1itmraturc.
7n  ~.HE  benefactors whose private collections have, by a generous act of endowment,  been thus rendered at the
same time permanent and public, could
be counted by hundreds.  It is now, however, my
function to describe a more subtle, but no less powerful influence, which the book-hunter exercises in
the preservation and promulgation of literature,
through the mere exercise of that instinct or passion which makes him  what he is here called.
What has been said above must have suggestedif it was not seen before- how great a pull it gives
to any public library, that it has had an early start;
and how hard it is, with any amount of wealth and
energy, to make up for lost time, and raise a later
institution to the level of its senior.  The Imperial
Library of Paris, which has so marvellously lived
through all the storms that have swept round its
walls, was founded in the fourteenth century.  It
began, of course, with manuscripts; possessing, before the beginning of the fifteenth century, the then
enormous number of a thousand volumes.  The
reason, however, of its present greatness, so far beyond the rivalry of later establishments, is, that it
was in active operation at the birth of printing, and
received the first-born of the press.  There they
have been sheltered and preserved, while their un



216            HIS FUNCTIONS.
protected brethren, tossed about in the world outside, have long disappeared, and passed out of existence forever.
It is a common notion, which has been floated
off from time to time, inflated with every variety of
rhetorical gas, that, since the age of printing, no
book once put to press has ever died. The notion
is quite inconsistent with fact. When we count by
hundreds of thousands the books that are in the
Paris Library, and not to be had for the British
Museum, we see the number of books which a
chance refuge has caught up from the general destruction, and can readily see, in shadowy bulk,
though we cannot estimate in numbers, the great
mass which, having found no refuge, have disappeared out of separate existence, and been mingled up with the other elements of the earth's
crust.
We have many accounts of the marvellous preservation of books, after they have become rare —
the snatching of them as brands from the burning;
their hairbreadth-'scapes i' the imminent deadly
breach.  It would be interesting, also, to have
some account of the progress of destruction among
books. A work dedicated apparently to this object,
which I have been unable to find in the body, is
mentioned under a very tantalizing title. It is by
a certain John Charles Conrad Oelrichs, author of
several scraps of literary history, and is called a
Dissertation concerning the Fates of Libraries and
Books, and, in the first place, concerning the books




THE PRESER VATION OF LITERATURE.  217
that have been eaten- such I take to be the meaning of Dissertatio de Bibliothecarum ac Librorum
Fatis, imprimis libris comestis.l This is nearly as
tantalizing as the wooden-legged Britisher's explanation to the inquisitive Yankee, who solemnly engaged to ask not another question were he told how
that leg was lost, and was accordingly told that " it
was bitten off."
Religious and political intolerance has, as all the
world knows, been a terrible enemy to literature,
not only by absolute suppression, but by the restraints of the licenser.  So little was literary freedom indeed understood anywhere until recent days,
that it was only by an accident, after the Revolution, that the licensing of books was abolished in
England. The new licenser, Edmond Bohun, happened in fact to be a Jacobite, and though he professed to conform  to the Revolution settlement, his
sympathies with the exiled house disabled him from
detecting disaffection skilfully smothered, and the
House of Commons, in a rage, abolished his office
by refusing to renew the licensing act. Of the extent to which literature has suffered by suppression, there are no data for a precise estimate. It
might bring out some curious results, however, were
1 [The author's perplexity is caused by a mere shade of meaning. The good Oelrichs plainly refers to books which have been
devoured; as we know, from the publishers' advertisements and
the assurances of young ladies, that many books are, every year.
This book, and particularly the pages on which these notes are
written, will be eagerly devoured by an intelligent public, and
so pass to a place among the libri comesti. - W.




218            HIS FUNCTIONS.
any investigator to tell us of the books which had
been effectually put down after being in existence.
It would, of course, be found that the weak were
crushed, while the strong flourished. Among the
valuable bibliographical works of Peignot, is a dictionary of books which have been condemned to the
flames, suppressed, or censured. We do not require
to go far through his alphabet to see how futile the
burnings and condemnations have been in their effect
on the giants of literature.  The first name of all is
that of Abelard, and so going on we pick up the
witty scamp Aretin, then pass on to D'Aubign6,
the great warrior and historian, Bayle, Beaumarchais, Boulanger, Catullus, Charron, Condillac,
Crebillon, and so on, down to Voltaire and Wicliffe.
Wars and revolutions have of course done their
natural work on many libraries, yet the mischief
effected by them has often been more visible than
real, since they have tended rather to dispersion
than destruction.  The total loss to literature by
the dispersion of the libraries of the monastic establishments in England, is probably not nearly so
great as that which has accompanied the chronic
mouldering away of the treasures preserved so obstinately by the lazy monks of the Levant, who
were found by Mr. Curzon at their public devotions
laying down priceless volumes which they could not
read to protect their dirty feet from the cold floor.
In the wildest times the book repository often partakes in the good fortune of the humble student




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE.  219
whom the storm passes over. In the hour of danger too, some friend who keeps a quiet eye upon
its safety may interpose at the critical moment.
The treasures of the French libraries were certainly
in terrible danger when Robespierre had before him
the draft of a decree, that " the books of the public
libraries of Paris and the departments should no
longer be permitted to offend the eyes of the republic by shameful marks of servitude."  The word
would have gone forth, and a good deal beyond the
mere marks of servitude would have been doubtless
destroyed, had not the emergency called forth the
courage and energies of Renouard and Didot.1
There are probably false impressions abroad as
to the susceptibility of literature to destruction by
fire. Books are not good fuel, as, fortunately, many
a housemaid has found, when, among other frantic
efforts and failures in fire-lighting, she has reasoned
from the false data of the inflammability of a piece
of paper. In the days wlien heretical books were
burned, it was necessary to place them  on large
wooden stages, and after all the pains taken to
demolish them, considerable readable masses were
sometimes found in the embers; whence it was supposed that the devil, conversant in fire and its effects,
gave them his special protection. In the end it was
found easier and cheaper to burn the heretics themselves than their books.
Thus books can be burned, but they don't burn,
and though in great fires libraries have been wholly
1 See Edwards on Libraries, vol. ii. p. 272.




220              HIS FUNCTIONS.
or partially destroyed, we never hear of a library
making a great conflagration like a cotton mill or a
tallow warehouse. Nay, a story is told of a house
seeming irretrievably on fire, until the flames, coming in contact with the folio Corpus Juris and the
Statutes at Large, were quite unable to get over this
joint barrier, and sank defeated. When anything
is said about the burning of libraries, Alexandria at
once flares up in the memory; but it is strange how
little of a satisfactory kind investigators have been
able to make out, either about the formation or
destruction of the many famous libraries collected
from time to time in that city. There seems little
doubt that Csesar's auxiliaries unintentionally burnt
one of them; its contents were probably written on
papyrus, a material about as inflammable as dried
reeds or wood-shavings.  As to that other burning
in detail, when the collection was used for fuel to
the baths, and lasted some six weeks - surely never
was there a greater victim of historical prejudice
and calumny than the "ignorant and fanatical "
Caliph Omar al Raschid. Over and over has his
act been disproved, and yet it will continue to be
re-asserted with uniform pertinacity in successive
rolling sentences, all as like each other as the successive billows in a swell at sea. 1
1 One of the latest inquirers who has gone over the ground
concludes his evidence thus:-" Omar ne vint pas k Alexandrie; et s'il y fut venu, il n'eut pas trouvd des livres a brfiler.
La bibliothique n'existait plus depuis deux sibcles et demi." —
Fournier, L'Esprit dans 1'Histoire.




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE.  221
Apart, however, from violence and accident, there
is a constant decay of books from what might be
called natural causes, keeping, like the decay of the
human race, a proportion to their reproduction,
which varies according to place or circumstance;
here showing a rapid increase where production outruns decay, and there a decrease where the morbid
elements of annihilation are stronger than the active
elements of reproduction. Indeed, volumes are in
their varied external conditions very like human
beings. There are some stout and others frail —
some healthy and others sickly; and it happens
often that the least robust are the most precious.
The full fresh health of some of the folio fathers
and schoolmen, ranged side by side in solemn state
on the oaken shelves of some venerable repository,
is apt to surprise those who expect mouldy decay;
the stiff hard binding is as angular as ever, — there
is no abrasion of the leaves, not a single dog-ear or
a spot, or even a dust-border on the mellowed white
of the margin. So, too, of those quarto civilians
and canonists of Leyden and Amsterdam, with their
smooth white vellum coats, bearing so generic a resemblance to Dutch cheeses, that they might be
supposed to represent the experiments of some
Gouda dairyman on the quadrature of the circle.
An easy life and an established position in society
are the secret of their excellent preservation and
condition. Their repose has been little disturbed
by intrusive readers or unceremonious investigators, and their repute for solid learning has given




222            HIS FUNCTIONS.
them a claim to attention and careful preservation.
Though this is dwindling away, like many other
conventional distinctions of rank, yet are authors of
the present day not entirely divested of the opportunity of taking their place on the shelf like these
old dignitaries. It would be as absurd, of course,
to appear in folio as to step abroad in the smallclothes and queue of our great-grandfathers' day,
and even quarto is reserved for science and some
departments of the law.  But then, on the other
hand, octavos are growing as large as some of the
folios of the seventeenth century, and a solid roomylooking book is still practicable.  Whoever desires
to achieve a sure, though it may be but a humble,
niche in the temple of fame, let him write a few
solid volumes, with respectably sounding titles, and
matter that will rather repel the reader than court
him  to such familiarity as may beget contempt.
Such books are to the frequenter of a library like
country gentlemen's seats to travellers, something
to know the name and ownership of in passing.
The stage-coachman of old use to proclaim each in
succession   the guide-book tells them  now.  So
do literary guide-books, in the shape of librarycatalogues and bibliographies, tell of these steady
and respectable mansions of literature.  No one
speaks ill of them, or even proclaims his ignorance
of their nature, and your " mall who knows everything " will profess some familiarity with them, the
more readily that the verity of his pretensions is




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE.  223
not likely to be tested.  A man's name may have
resounded for a time through all the newspapers as
the gainer of a great victory or the speaker of marvellous speeches —he may have been the most brilliant wit of some distinguished social circle -the
head of a great profession - even a leading statesman, yet his memory has utterly evaporated with
the departure of his own generation. Had he but
written one or two of these solid books, now, his
name would have been perpetuated in catalogues
and bibliographical dictionaries; nay, biographies
and encyclopaedias would contain their titles, and
perhaps the day of the author's birth and death.
Let those who desire posthumous fame, counting
recollection as equivalent to fame, think of this.
It is with no desire to further the annihilation or
decay of the stout and long-lived class of books of
which I have been speaking, that I now draw
attention to the book-hunter's services in the preservation of some that are of a more fragile nature,
and are liable to droop and decay. We can see the
process going oil around us, just as we see other
things travelling towards extinction.  Look, for
instance, at school - books, how  rapidly and obviously they go to ruin. True, there are plenty
of them, but save of those preserved in the privileged libraries, or of any that may be tossed aside
among lumber in which they happen to remain
until they become curiosities, what chance is there
of any of them being in existence a century hence?
Collectors know well the extreme rarity and value




224            HIS FUNCTIONS.
of ancient school-books. Nor is their value by any
means fanciful. The dominie will tell us that they
are old-fashioned, and the pedagogue who keeps a
school, "and ca's it a acaudemy," will sneer at
them as " obsolete and incompatible with the enlightened adjuncts of modern tuition;" but if we
are to consider that the condition of the human
intellect at any particular juncture is worth studying, it is certainly of importance to know on what
food its infancy is fed. And so of children's playbooks as well as their work-books; these are as
ephemeral as their other toys.  Retaining dear
recollections of some that were the favorites, and
desiring to awaken from them old recollections of
careless boyhood, or perhaps to try whether your
own children inherit the paternal susceptibility to
their beauties, you make application to the bookseller —but, behold, they have disappeared from
existence as entirely as the rabbits you fed, and
the terrier that followed you with his cheery clattering bark. Neither name nor description —not
the announcement of the benevolent publishers,
" Darton, Harvey, and Darton "- can recover the
faintest traces of their vestiges. Old cookery-books,
almanacs, books of prognostication, directories for
agricultural operations, guides to handicrafts, and
other works of a practical nature, are infinitely
valuable when they refer to remote times, and also
infinitely rare.
But of course the most interesting of all are
the relics of pure literature, of poems and plays.




THE PRESER VATION OF LITERATURE. 225
Whence have arisen all the anxious searches and
disappointments, and the bitter contests, and the
rare triumphs, about the early editions of Shakespeare, separately or collectively, save from this,
that they passed from one impatient hand to another, and were subjected to an unceasing greedy
perusal, until they were at last used up and put
out of existence? True it was to be with him"So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore,
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky."
But his tuneful companions who had less vital
power have lain like some ancient cemetery or
buried city, in which antiquaries have been for a
long age digging and searching for some fragment
of intellectual treasure.
One book, and that the most read of all, was
hedged by a sort of divinity which protected it, so
far as that was practicable, from the dilapidating
effects of use.  The Bible seems to have been ever
touched with reverent gentleness, and, when the
sordid effects of long handling had become inevitably conspicuous, to have been generally removed
out of sight, and, as it were, decently interred.
Hence it is that, of the old editions of the Bible,
the copies are so comparatively numerous and in
such fine preservation. Look at those two folios
from  the types of Guttenburg and Fust, running
so far back into the earliest stage of the art of
15




226            HIS FUNCTIONS.
printing, that of them is told the legend of a combination with the devil, which enabled one man to
write so many copies identically the same. See
how clean and spotless is the paper, and how black,
glossy, and distinct the type, telling us how little
progress printing has made since the days of its
inventors, in anything save the greater rapidity
with which, in consequence of the progress of machinery, it can now be executed.
The reason of the extreme rarity of the books
printed by the early English printers is that, being
very amusing, they were used up - thumbed out of
existence. Such were Caxton's book of the Ordre
of Chyualry; his Knyght of the Toure; the
Myrour of the World; and the Golden Legende;
Cocke Lorell's Bote, by De Worde; his Kalender
of Shepeherdes, and such like. If any one feels an
interest in the process of exhaustion, by which such
treasures were reduced to rarity, he may easily
witness it in the debris of a circulating library;
and perhaps he will find the phenomenon in still
more distinct operation at any book-stall where lie
heaps of school-books, odd volumes of novels, and a
choice of Watts's Hymns and Pilgrim's Progresses.
Here, too, it is possible that the enlightened onlooker may catch sight of the book-hunter plying
his vocation, much after the manner in which, in
some ill-regulated town, he may have beheld the
chiffonniers, at early dawn, rummaging among the
cinder-heaps for ejected treasures. A ragged morsel
is perhaps carefully severed from the heap, wrapped




THE PRESER VATION  OF LITE RATURE.  227
in paper to keep its leaves together, and deposited
in the purchaser's pocket.,You  would probably
find it difficult to recognize the fragment, if you
should see it in the brilliancy of its resuscitation.
A  skilled and cautious workman has applied a bituminous solvent to its ragged edges, and literally
incorporated, by a sort of paper-making process,
each mouldering  page into a broad  leaf of fine:
strong paper, in which  the print, according  to a
simile used for such occasions, seems like a small'
rivulet in a wide meadow of margin. This is termed
inlaying, and is a very lofty department in the art
of binding. Then there is, besides, the grandeur of
russia or morocco, with gilding, and tooling, and
marbling, and perhaps a ribbon marker, dangling
out with a decoration at its end — all tending, like
stars, and garters, and official robes, to stamp the
outer insignia of importance on the book, and to
warn all the world to respect it, and save it from
the risks to which the common herd of literature is
liable.1
I There is something exceedingly curious, not only in its
bearing on the matter of the text, but as a record of some peculiar manners and habits of the fourteenth century, in Robert of
Bury's injunctions as to the proper treatment of the manuscripts
which were read in his day, and the signal contrast offered by
the practice both of the clergy and laity to his decorous precepts.
" We not only set before ourselves a service to God in preparing volumes of new books, but we exercise the duties of a holy
piety, if we first handle so as not to injure them, then return
them to their proper places and commend them to undefiling
custody, that they may rejoice in their purity while held in the
hand, and repose in security when laid up in their repositories.




228                HIS FUNCTIONS.
I have recourse to  our old  friend  Monkbarns
again for a brilliant description of the bibliophile,
as the French politely call him, in the performance
of the function assigned to him  in the dispensation
Truly, next to the vestments and vessels dedicated to the body
of the Lord, holy books deserve to be most decorously handled
by the clergy, upon which injury is inflicted as often as they
presume to touch them with a dirty hand. Wherefore, we hold
it expedient to exhort students upon various negligences which
can always be avoided, but which are wonderfully injurious to
books.
"In the first place, then, let there be a mature decorum in
opening and closing of volumes, that they may neither be unclasped with precipitous haste, nor thrown aside after inspection
without being duly closed; for it is necessary that a book should
be much more carefully preserved than a shoe. But school-folks
are in general perversely educated, and, if not restrained by the
rule of their superiors, are puffed up with infinite absurdities;
they act with petulance, swell with presumption, judge of everything with certainty, and are unexperienced in anything.
"You will perhaps see a stiff-necked youth, lounging sluggishly in his study, while the frost pinches him in winter time,
oppressed with cold, his watery nose drops, nor does he take the
trouble to wipe it with his handkerchief till it has moistened the
book beneath it with its vile dew. For such a one, I would substitute a cobbler's apron in the place of his book. He has a nail
like a giant's, perfumed with stinking filth, with which he points
out the place of any pleasant subject. He distributes innumerable straws in various places, with the ends in sight, that he
may recall by the mark what his memory cannot retain. These
straws, which the stomach of the book never digests, and which
nobody takes out, at first distend the book from its accustomed
closure, and, being carelessly left to oblivion, at last become
putrid. He is not ashamed to eat fruit and cheese over an open
book, and to transfer his empty cup from side to side upon it;
and because he-has not his alms-bag at hand, he leaves the rest
of the fragments in his books. He never ceases to chatter with
eternal garrulity to his companions; and while he adduces a




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE.  229
of things, -renewing my already recorded protest
against the legitimacy of the commercial part of the
transaction:"'Snuffy  Davie  bought the  Game  of Chess,
multitude of reasons void of physical meaning, he waters the
book, spread out upon his lap, with the sputtering of his saliva.
What is worse, he next reclines with his elbows on the book,
and by a short study invites a long nap; and by way of repairing
the wrinkles, he twists back the margins of the leaves, to the no
small detriment of the volume. He goes out in the rain, and
now flowers make their appearance upon our soil. Then the
scholar we are describing, the neglecter rather than the inspector of books, stuffs his volume with firstling violets, roses, and
quadrifoils. He will next apply his wet hands, oozing with
sweat, to turning over the volumes, then beat the white parchment all over with his dusty gloves, or hunt over the page, line
by line, with his forefinger covered with dirty leather. Then,
as the flea bites, the holy book is thrown aside, which, however,
is scarcely closed in a month, and is so swelled with the dust
that has fallen into it, that it will not yield to the efforts of the
closer.
" But impudent boys are to be specially restrained from ineddling with books, who, when they are learning to draw the forms
of letters, if copies of the most beautiful books are allowed them,
begin to become incongruous annotators, and wherever they
perceive the broadest margin about the text, they furnish it
with a monstrous alphabet, or their unchastened pen immediately presumes to draw any other frivolous thing whatever
that occurs to their imagination. There the Latinist, there the
sophist, there every sort of unlearned scribe tries the goodness
of his pen, which we have frequently seen to have been most
injurious to the fairest volumes, both as to utility and price.
There are also certain thieves who enormously dismember books
by cutting off the side margins for letter-paper (leaving only the!
letters or text), or the fly-leaves put in for the preservation of'
the book, which they take away for various uses and abuses,.
which sort of sacrilege ought to be prohibited under a threat of'
anathema.




230                HIS FUNCTIONS.
1474, the first book ever printed in England, from
a stall in Holland, for about two groschen, or twopence of our money.  He sold it to Osborne for
twenty pounds, and as many books as came to
twenty pounds more.  Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew  for sixty guineas.  At
Dr. Askew's sale,' continued  the old gentleman,
kindling  as he  spoke,' this inestimable  treasure
blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased
by royalty itself for one hundred and seventy
pounds!  Could  a  copy  now  occur, Lord  only
knows,' lie ejaculated, with a deep sigh and liftedup hands, -' Lord only knows what would be its
ransom! -and yet it was originally secured, by skill
"But it is altogether befitting the decency of a scholar that
washing should without fail precede reading, as often as he returns from his meals to study, before his fingers, besmeared
with grease, loosen a clasp or turn over the leaf of a book. Let
not a crying child admire the drawings in the capital letters, lest
he pollute the parchment with his wet fingers, for he instantly
touches whatever he sees.
"Furthermore, laymen, to whom it matters not whether they
look at a book turned wrong side upwards or spread before them
*in its natural order, are altogether unworthy of any communion,with books. Let the clerk also take order that the dirty sculilion, stinking from the pots, do not touch the leaves of books
unwashed; but he who enters without spot shall give his services to the precious volumes.
" The cleanliness of delicate hands, as if scabs and postules.could not be clerical characteristics, might also be most important, as well to books as to scholars, who, as often as they perceive defects in books, should attend to them instantly, for nothing enlarges more quickly than a rent, as a fracture neglected at
the time will afterwards be repaired with increased trouble."Philobiblion, p. 101.




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE.  231
and research, for the easy equivalent of twopence
sterling.  Happy, thrice happy, Snuffy Davie!and blessed were the times when thy industry could
be so rewarded!'"
In such manner is it that books are saved from
annihilation, and that their preservers become the
feeders of the great collections in which, after their
value is established, they find refuge; and herein it
is that the class to whom our attention is at present
devoted perform an inestimable service to literature. It is, as you will observe, the general ambition of the class to find value where there seems
to be none, and this develops a certain skill and
subtlety, enabling the operator, in the midst of a
heap of rubbish, to put his finger on those things
which have in them the latent capacity to become
valuable and curious. The adept will at once intuitively separate from its friends the book that either
is or will become curious. There must be something more than mere rarity to give it this value,
although high authorities speak of the paucity of
copies as being everything. David Clement, the
illustrious French bibliographer, who seems to have
anticipated the positive philosophy by an attempt to
make bibliography, as the Germans have named it,
one of the exact sciences, lays it down with authority, that " a book which it is difficult to find in the
country where it is sought ought to be called simply rare; a book which it is difficult to find in any
country may be called very rare; a book of which
there are only fifty or sixty copies existing, or




232            HIS FUNCTIONS.
which appears so seldom as if there never had
been more at any time than that number of copies,
ranks as extremely rare; and when the whole number of copies does not exceed ten, this constitutes
excessive rarity, or rarity in the highest degree."
This has been received as a settled doctrine in bibliography; but it is utter pedantry. Books may be
rare enough in the real or objective sense of the
term, but if they are not so in the nominal or subjective sense, by being sought after, their rarity
goes for nothing.  A volume may be unique
may stand quite alone in the world - but whether
it is so, or one of a numerous family, is never
known, for no one has ever desired to possess it,
and no one ever will.
But it is a curious phenomenon in the old-book
trade, that rarities do not always remain rare; volumes seeming to multiply through some cryptogamic process, when we know perfectly that no
additional copies are printed and thrown off. The
fact is, that the rumor of scarcity, and value, and
of a hunt after them, draws them from their hidingplaces. If we may judge from the esteem in which
they were once held, the Elzevirs must have been
great rarities in this country; but they are now
plentiful enough - the heavy prices in the British
market having no doubt sucked them out of dingy
repositories in Germany and Holland —so that,
even in this department of commerce, the law of
supply and demand is not entirely abrogated. He
who dashes at all the books called rare, or even




THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE. 233
very rare, by Clement and his brethren, will be apt
to suffer the keen disappointment of finding that
there are many who participate with him in the
possession of the same treasures.  In fact, let a
book but make its appearance in that author's
Bibliotheque Curieuse, Historique, et Critique, ou
Catalogue Raisonn6 de Livres difficiles a trouver;
or in Graesses's Tresor de Livres Rares et Pr6cieux - let it be mentioned as a rarity in Eibert's
Allgemeines Bibliographisches Lexicon, or in Debure, Clement, Osmond, or the Repertorium  Bibliographicum,- such proclamation is immediate
notice to many fortunate possessors who were no
more aware of the value of their dingy-looking volumes than Monsieur Jourdain knew himself to be
in the habitual daily practice of talking prose.
So are we brought again back to the conclusion
that the true book-hunter must not be a follower of
any abstract external rules, but must have an inward sense and literary taste. It is not absolutely
that a book is rare, or that it is run after, that must
commend it to him, but something in the book itself.  Hence the relics which he snatches from ruin
will have some innate merits to recommend them.
They will not be of that unhappy kind which nobody has desired to possess for their own sake, and
nobody ever will. Something there will be of original genius, or if not that, yet of curious, odd, out
of the way information, or of quaintness of imagination, or of characteristics pervading some class of
men, whether a literary or a polemical, - some



234             HIS FUNCTIONS.
thing, in short, which people desirous of information will some day or other be anxious to readsuch are the volumes which it is desirable to save
from annihilation, that they may find their place at
last in some of the great magazines of the world's
literary treasures.
~ibraticlt.
T will often be fortunate for these great
institutions if they obtain the services. of the hunter himself, along with his
spoils of the chase.  The leaders in the
German wars often found it an exceedingly sound
policy to subsidise into their own service some captain of free lances, who might have been a curse to
all around him. Your great game-preservers sometimes know the importance of taking the most notorious poacher in the district into pay as a keeper.
So it is sometimes of the nature of the book-hunter,
if he be of the genial sort, and free of some of the
more vicious peculiarities of his kind, to make an
invaluable librarian.  Such an arrangement will
sometimes be found to be like mercy twice blessed,
— it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
The imprisoned spirit probably finds freedom  at
last, and those purchases and accumulations which,
to the private purse, were profuse and culpable
recklessness, may become veritable duty; while the




LIBRARIANS.                235
wary outlook and the vigilant observation, which
before were only leading a poor victim into temptation, may come forth as commendable attention and
zealous activity.
Sometimes mistakes have been made in selections
on this principle, and a zeal has been embarked
which has been found to tend neither to profit nor
edification; for there have been known, at the head
of public libraries, men of the cerberus kind who
loved the books so dearly, as to be unable to endure
the handling of them by the vulgar herd of readers
and searchers - even by those for whose special aid
and service they are employed.  They who have
this morbid terror of the profanation of the treasures committed to their charge suffer in themselves
the direst torments - something like those of a cat
beholding her kittens tossed by a dog - whenever
their favorites are handled; and the excruciating
extent of their agonies, when some ardent and
careless student dashes right into the heart of some
editio princeps, or tall copy, or, perhaps, lays it
open with its face on the table while he snatches
another edition that he may collate a passage, is
not to be conceived. It is then the dog worrying
the kittens. Such men will only give satisfaction
in great private libraries little disturbed by their
proprietors, or in monastic or other corporate institutions, where it is the worthy object of the patrons
to keep their collection in fine condition, and, at the
same time, to take order that it shall be of the least
possible service to education or literature.  Angelo




236              ZIS FUNCTIONS.
Mai, the great librarian of the Vatican, who made
so many valuable discoveries himself, had the character of taking good care that no one else should
make any within his own strictly-preserved hunting
grounds.
In the general case, however, a bibliophile at the
head of a public library is genial and communicative, and has a pleasure in helping the investigator
through the labyrinth of its stores. Such men feel
their strength; and the immense value of the service which they may sometimes perform by a brief
hint in the right direction which the inquiry should
take, or by handing down a volume, or recommending the best directory to all the learning on the
matter in hand, has laid many men of letters under
great obligations to them.
The most eminent type of this class of men was
Magliabecchi, librarian to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who could direct you to any book in any part
of the world, with the precision with which the
metropolitan policeman directs you to St. Paul's or
Piccadilly. It is of him that the stories are told of
answers to inquiries after books, in these terms:" There is but one copy of that book in the world.
It is in the Grand Seignior's library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book in the second shelf
on the right hand as you go in." 1  His faculties
1 [The ability to give directions for finding any book in the
world, even if the assertion be received as hyperbolical, is so
marvellous as to seem almost incredible. But Magliabecchi's
marvellousness is well authenticated. Yet, is the instance here
cited of his knowledge very striking? If there had been half a




LIBRARIANS.                  237
were, like those of all great men, self-born and selftrained.  So little was the impoverished soil in
which he passed his infancy congenial to his pursuits in after-life, that it was not within the parental
intentions to teach him to read, and his earliest labors were in the shop of a green-grocer. Had his
genius run on natural science, he might have fed it
here, but it was his felicity and his fortune to be
transferred to the shop of a patronizing bookseller.
Here he drank in an education such as no academic
forcing machinery could ever infuse. He devoured
books, and the printed leaves became as necessary
to his existence as the cabbage-leaves to the caterpillars which at times made their not welcome appearance in the abjured green-grocery. Like these
verdant reptiles, too, he became assimilated to the
food he fed on, insomuch that lie was in a manner
hot-pressed, bound, marble-topped, lettered, and
shelved.  He could bear nothing but books around
him, and would allow no space for aught else; his
furniture, according to repute, being limited to two
chairs, the second of which was admitted in order
that the two together might serve as a bed.
Another enthusiast of the sanie kind was Adrien
Baillet, the author, or, more properly speaking, the
compiler, of the " Jugemens des Savans." Some
dozen copies of the book, and he had been able to tell the exact
whereabout of each one, it would have been strange indeed.
But there being only one in the world, if Magliabecchi had ever
seen it, taken it down, looked at it, and put it back again, how
could he help being able to put his finger upon it in the dark
forever after? - W.




238             HIS FUNCTIONS.
copies of this book, which has a quantity of valuable matter scattered through it, have Baillet's portrait, from which his calm  scholarly countenance
looks genially forth, with this appropriate motto,
"Dans une douce solitude, a l'abri du mensonge et
de la vanit6, j'adoptai la critique, et j'en fis mon
etude, pour d6couvrir la verite."  Him, struggling
with poverty, aggravated with a thirst for books,
did Lamoignon the elder place at the head of his
library, thus at once pasturing him in clover.
When the patron told his friend, Hermant, of his
desire to find a librarian possessed of certain fabulous qualifications for the duty, his correspondent
said, "I will bring the very man to you;" and
Baillet, a poor, frail, attenuated, diseased scholar,
was produced. His kind patron fed him up, so far
as a man who could not tear himself from  his
books, unless when nature became entirely exhausted, could be fed up. The statesman and his
librarian were the closest of friends; and on the
elder Lamoignon's death, the son, still more distinguished, looked up to Baillet as a father and
instructor.
Men of this stamp are generally endowed with
deep and solid learning.  For any one, indeed, to
take the command of a great public library, without
large accomplishments, especially in the languages,
is to put himself in precisely the position where
ignorance, superficiality, and quackery are subjected
to the most potent test, and are certain of detection.
The number of librarians who have united great




LIBRARIANS.                 239
learning to a love of books, is the best practical
answer to all sneers about the two being incompatible.  Nor, while we count among us such names
as Pannizzi, Birch, Halket, Naudet, Laing, Cogswell, Jones, Pertz, and Tod, is the race of learned
librarians likely to decay.
It will be worth while for the patrons of public
libraries, even in appointments to small offices, to
have an eye on bookish men for filling them. One
librarian differs greatly from another, and on this
difference will often depend the entire utility of the
institution, and the question whether it is worth
keeping it open or closing its door.  Of this class
of workmen it may be said quite as aptly as of the
poet, nascitur, non fit.  The usual testimonies to
qualification -steadiness, sobriety, civility, intelligence, &c. — may all be up to the mark that will
constitute a first-rate book-keeper in the mercantile
sense of the term, while they are united in a very
dreary and hopeless keeper of books. Such a person ought to go to his task with something totally
different from the impulses which induce a man to
sort dry goods or make up invoices, with eminent
success.  In short, your librarian would need to be
in some way touched with the malady which has
been the object of these desultory remarks.




PART III-. -HIS CLUB.
Clubz il Ocneract1.
N author of the last generation, pro-.[ fessing to deal with any branch of
human affairs, if he were ambitious
[ of being considered philosophical, re-.:quired to go at once to the beginning
of all things, where, finding man alone in the world,
he would describe how the biped set about his own
special business, for the supply of his own wants
and desires; and then finding that the human being
was, by his instincts, not a solitary but a social
animal, the ambitious author would proceed in wellbalanced sentences to describe how men aggregated
themselves into hamlets, villages, towns, cities, counties, parishes, corporations, select vestries, and so
on. I find that, without the merit of entertaining
any philosophical views, I have followed, unconsciously, the same routine. Having discussed the
book-hunter as he individually pursues his object,
I now propose to look in upon him at his club, and
say something about its peculiarities, as the shape
in which he takes up the pursuit collectively with
others who happen to be like-minded to himself.




CLUBS IN GENERAL.             241
Those who are so very old as to remember the
Episcopal Church of Scotland, in that brief period
of stagnant depression, when the repeal of the penal
laws had removed from her the lustre of martyrdom, and she had not yet attained the more secular
lustre which the zeal of her wealthy votaries has
since conferred on her, will be familiar with the
name of Bishop Robert Jolly. To the ordinaryreader, however, it may be necessary to introduce
him more specifically. He was a man of singular
purity, devotedness, and learning. If he had no
opportunity of attesting the sincerity of his faith by
undergoing stripes and bondage for the Church of
his adoption, he developed in its fulness that unobtrusive self-devotion, not inferior to martyrdom,
which dedicates to obscure duties the talent and
energy that, in the hands of the selfish and ambitious, would be the sure apparatus of wealth and
station. He had no doubt risen to an office of
dignity in his own Church - e was a bishop. But
to understand the position of a Scottish bishop in
those days, one must figure Parson Adams, no
richer than Fielding has described him, yet incumbered by a title ever associated with wealth and
dignity, and only calculated, when allied with so
much poverty and social humility, to deepen the
incongruity of his lot, and throw him more than
ever on the mercy of the scorner. The office was
indeed conspicuous, not by its dignities or emoluments, but by the extensive opportunities it afforded for self-devotion.  One may have noticed his
16




242               HIS CLUB.
successor of the present day figuring in newspaper
paragraphs as " The Lord Bishop of Moray and
Ross."  It did not fall to the lot of him of whom
I write to render his title so flagrantly incongruous.
A lordship was not necessary, but it was the principle of his Church to require a bishop, and in him
she got a bishop. In reality, however, he was the
parish clergyman of the small and poor remnant
of the Episcopal persuasion who inhabited the odoriferous fishing-town of Fraserburgh.  There he
lived a long life of such simplicity and abstinence
as the poverty of the poorest of his flock scarcely
drove them to. He had one failing to link his life
with this nether world - he was a book-hunter.
How with his poor income, much of which went to
feed the necessities of those still poorer, he should
have accomplished anything in a pursuit generally
considered expensive, is among other unexplained
mysteries.  But somehow he managed to scrape
together a curious and interesting collection, so that
his name became associated with rare books, as well
as with rare Christian virtues.
When it was proposed to establish an institution
for reprinting the works of the fathers of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, it was naturally deemed
that no more worthy or characteristic name could
be attached to it than that of the venerable prelate
who, by his learning and virtues, had so long
adorned the episcopal chair of Moray and Ross,
and who had shown a special interest in the department of literature to which the institution was




CLUBS IN GENERAL.             243
to be devoted. Hence it came to pass that, through
a perfectly natural process, the association for the
purpose of reprinting the works of certain old divines was to be ushered into the world by the style
and title of THE JOLLY CLUB.
There happened to be among those concerned,
however, certain persons so corrupted with the
wisdom of this world, as to apprehend that the
miscellaneous public might fail to trace this designation to its true origin, and might indeed totally
mistake the nature and object of the institution,
attributing to it aims neither consistent with the
ascetic life of the departed prelate, nor with the
pious and intellectual objects of its founders.  The
counsels of these worldly-minded persons prevailed.
The Jolly Club was never instituted, - at least as
an association for the reprinting of old books of
divinity, though I am not prepared to say that
institutions more than one so designed may not
exist for other purposes. The object, however, was
not entirely abandoned.  A  body of gentlemen
united themselves together under the name of another Scottish prelate, whose fate had been more
distinguished, if not more fortunate; and the Spottiswoode Society was established.  Here, it will
be observed, there was a passing to the opposite
extreme; and so intense seems to have been the
anxiety to escape from all excuse for indecorous
jokes or taint of joviality, that the word Club,
wisely adopted by other bodies of the same kind,
was abandoned, and this one called itself a Society.




244              HIS CLUB.
To that abandonment of the medio tutissimus has
been attributed its early death by those who contemn the taste of those other communities, essentially Book Clubs, which have taken to the devious
course of calling themselves "' Societies."
In fact, all our societies, from the broad-brimmed
Society of Friends downwards, have something in
them of a homespun, humdrum, plain, flat  not
unprofitable, perhaps, but unattractive character.
They may be good and useful, but they have no
dignity or ornament, and are quite destitute of the
strange meteoric power and grandeur which have
accompanied the career of Clubs.  Societies there
are, indeed, which identify themselves through their
very nomenclature with misfortune and misery,
seeming proudly to proclaim themselves victims to
all the saddest ills that flesh is heir to — as, for
instance, Destitute Sick Societies, Indigent Blind
Societies, Deaf and Dumb Societies, Burial Societies, and the like. The nomenclature of some of
these benevolent institutions seems likely to test the
etymological skill of the next generation of learned
men. Perhaps some ethnological philosopher will
devote himself to the special investigation and development of the phenomenon; and if such things
are done then in the way in which they are now,
the result will appear in something like the following shape: —
" Man, as we pursue his destiny from century to
century, is still found inevitably to resolve himself
into a connected and antithetic series of consecutive




CLUBS IN GENERAL.            245
cycles. The eighteenth century having been an
age of individuative, the nineteenth necessarily became an age of associative or coinonomic development. He, the man - to himself the ego, and to
others the mere homo - ceased to revolve around
the pivot of his own individual idiosyncrasy, and,
following the instincts of his nature, resolved himself into associative community. In this necessary
development of their nature all partook, from the
congresses of mighty monarchs down to those humbler but not less majestic types of the predominant
influence, which, in the expressive language of
that age, were recognized as twopenny goes. It
is known only to those whose researches have led
them through the intricacies of that phase of human progress, how multifarious and varied were
the forms in which the inner spirit, objectively at
work in mankind, had its external subjective development. Not only did associativeness shake the
monarch on his throne, and prevail over the councils of the assembled magnates of the realm, but it
was the form in which each shape and quality of
humanity, down even to penury and disease, endeavored to express its instincts; and so the blind
and the lame, the deaf and dumb, the sick and poor,
made common stock of their privations, and endeavored by the force of union to convert weakness into
strength," &c.
When the history of clubs is fully written, let us
hope that it will be in another fashion. If it sufficiently abound in details, such a history would be




246                  HIS CLUB.
full of marvels, from the vast influences which it
would describe as arising from time to time by
silent obscure growth out of nothing, as it were.
Just look at what clubs have been, and have done;
a mere enumeration is enough to recall the impression. Not to dwell on the institutions which have
made Pall Mall and its neighborhood a conglomerate of palaces, or on such lighter affairs as'" the
Four-in-Hand," which the railways have left behind, or the " Alpine," whose members they carry
to the field of their enjoyment: there was the Mermaid, counting among its members Shakespeare,
Raleigh, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Jonson; then
came the King's Head; the October; the Kit-Cat;
the Beaf-Steak; the Terrible Calves Head; Johnson's club, where he had Bozzy, Goldie, Burke, and
Reynolds; the Poker, where Hume, Carlyle, Ferguson, and Adam Smith took their claret.
In these, with all their varied objects- literary,
political, or convivial - the one leading peculiarity
was the powerful influence they exercised on the
condition of their times. A certain club there was
with a simple unassuming name, - differing, by the
way, only in three letters from that which would
have commemorated the virtues of Bishop Jolly.
1 [This assertion, so often made as to be generally believed,
has not an iota of evidence to sustain it. There is no proof
whatever, direct or indirect, that Shakespeare was ever at
the Mermaid. That Raleigh and Beaumont and Fletcher and
Jonson left him out of their fellowship, is, indeed, incredible;
and so in spite of the lack of proof, I with the rest devoutly
believe that they all drank sack at the Mermaid together. - W.]




STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS.  247
The club in question, though nothing in the eye of
the country but an easy knot of gentlemen who
assembled for their amusement, cast defiance at a
sovereign prince, and shook the throne and institutions of the greatest of modern states. But if we
want to see the club culminating to its highest pitch
of power, we must go across the water and saturate
ourselves with the horrors of the Jacobin clubs, the
Breton, and the Feuillans.  The scenes we will
there find stand forth in eternal protest against
Johnson's genial definition in his Dictionary, where
he calls a club " an assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions."
ClIe Ztrurture   of the 3ook Cl!ubs.
HERE  has been an addition, by no
means contemptible, to the influence
exercised by these institutions on the
course of events, in the book clubs, or
printing clubs as they are otherwise termed, of the
present day. They have within a few years added
a department to literature. The collector, who has,
been a member of several, may count their fruit by
the thousand, all ranging in symmetrical and portlyvolumes. Without interfering either with the author who seeks in his copyrights the reward of his,
genius and labor, or with the publisher who calcu-~
lates on a return for his capital, skill, and industry,,




248               HIS CLUB.
the book clubs have ministered to literary wants,
which these legitimate sources of supply have been
unable to meet.
I hope no one is capable of reading so far through
this book who is so grossly ignorant as not to know
that the book clubs are a set of associations for the
purpose of printing and distributing among their
members certain books, calculated to gratify the
peculiar taste which has brought them together and
united them into a club. An opportunity may perhaps be presently taken for indulging in some characteristic notices of the several clubs, their members, and their acts and monuments: in the mean
time let me say a word on the utilitarian efficiency
of this arrangement - on the blank in the order of
terrestial things which the book club was required
to fill, and the manner in which it has accomplished
its function.
There is a class of books of which the production
has in this country always been uphill work; — large
solid books, more fitted for authors and students than
for those termed the reading public at large -books
which may hence, in some measure, be termed the
raw materials of literature, rather than literature
-itself.  They are eminently valuable; but, since it
is to the intellectual manufacturer who is to produce an article of salable literature that they are
valuable, rather than to the general consumer, they
*do not secure an extensive sale.  Of this kind of
literature the staple materials are old state papers
and letters, old chronicles, specimens of poetic, dra



STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS.  249
matic, and other literature -more valuable as vestiges of the style and customs of their age than for
their absolute worth as works of genius - massive
volumes of old divinity, disquisitions on obsolete
science, and the like.
It is curious, by the way, that costly books of this
sort seem to succeed better with the French than
with us, though we do not generally give that people credit for excelling us in the outlay of money.
Perhaps it is because they enjoy the British market
as well as their own that they are enabled to excel
us; but they certainly do so in the publication,
through private enterprise, of great costly works,
having a sort of national character. The efforts to
rival them in this country have been considerable
and meritorious, but in many instances signally unifortunate.  Take, for instance, the noble edition of
Holingshed and the other chroniclers, published in
quarto volumes by the London trade; the Parliamentary History, in thirty-six volumes, each containing about as much reading as Gibbon's Decline
and Fall; The State Trials; Sadler's and Thurlow's State Papers; the Harleian Miscellany, and
several other ponderous publications of the same
kind. All of them are to be had cheap, some at
just a percentage above the price of waste paper.
When an attempt was made to publish in the English language a really thorough Biographical Dictionary, an improvement on the French Biographie
Universelle, it stuck in letter A, after the completion of seven dense octavo volumes- an abortive




250               HIS CLUB.
fragment, bearing melancholy testimony to what
such a work ought to be. Publications of this kind
have, in several instances, caused great losses to
some, while they have brought satisfaction to no
one concerned in them. A publisher has just the
same distaste as any other ordinary member of the
human family to the loss of five or ten thousand
pounds in hard cash. Then, as touching the purchasers, - no doubt the throwing of "a remnant "
on the market may sometimes bring the book into
the possession of one who can put it to good use,
and would have been unable to purchase it at the
original price. But the rich deserve some consideration as well as the poor. It will be hard to find
the man so liberal and benevolent that he will joyfully see his neighbor obtain for thirty shillings the
precise article for which he has himself paid thirty
pounds; nor does there exist the descendant of
Adam who, whatever lie may say or pretend, will
take such an antithesis with perfect equanimity.
Even the fortunate purchasers of portions of " the
remnant," or " the broken book," as another pleasant technicality of the trade has it, are not always
absolutely happy in their lot.  They have been
tempted by sheer cheapness to admit some bulky
and unwieldy articles into their abodes, and they
look askance at the commodity as being rather
a sacrifice to mammon than a monument of good
taste.
It has been the object of the machinery here referred to, to limit the impressions of such works to




STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS.   251
those who want and can pay for them - an extremely simple object, as all great ones are. There
is, however, a minute nicety in the adjustment of
the machinery, which was not obvious until it
came forth in practice —a nicety without which
the whole system falls to pieces. It was to accomplish this nicety that the principle of the club was
found to be so well adapted. A club is essentially
a body to which more people want admission than
can gain it; if it do not manage to preserve this
characteristic, it falls to pieces for want of pressure
from without, like a cask divested of its hoops.
To make the books retain their value, and be an
object of desire, it was necessary that the impressions should be slightly within the natural circulation - that there should be rather a larger number
desirous of obtaining each volume than the number
that could be supplied with it. The club effected
this by its own natural action. So long as there
were candidates for vacancies and the ballot-box
went round, so long were the books printed in demand and valuable to their possessors.  If there
were 110 or 120 people willing to possess and pay
for a certain class of books, the secret of keeping
up the pressure from without and the value of the
books was, to limit the number of members and
participators to 100.  There is nothing noble or
disinterested in this.  The arrangement has no
pretension to either of these qualities; nor when
we come to the great forces which influence the
supply and demand of human wants, whether in




252               ilS CL UB.
the higher or the humbler departments, will we
find these qualities in force, or indeed any other
motive than common selfishness.  It is a sufficient
vindication of the arrangement that it produced its
effect. If there were ten or twenty disappointed
candidates, the hundred were possessed of the
treasures which none could have obtained but for
the restrictive arrangements.  Scott used to say
that the Bannatyne Club was the only successful
joint-stock company he ever invested in - and the
remark is the key-note of the motives which kept
alive the system that has done so much good to
literature.
To understand the nature and services of these
valuable institutions, it is necessary to keep in view
the limits within which alone they can be legitimately worked. They will not serve for the propagation of standard literature — of the books of
established reputation, which are always selling.
These are merchandise, and must follow the law of
trade like other commodities, whether they exist in
the form of copyright monopolies, or are open to all
speculators. No kind of cooperation will bring the
volumes into existence so cheaply as the outlay of
trade capital, which is expected to replace itself
with a moderate profit after a quick sale.  The
perfection of this process is seen in the production
and sale of that book which is ever the surest of a
market - the Bible; and when a printer requires
the certain and instantaneous return of his outlay,
that is the shape in which he is most secure of obtaining it.




STRUCTURE OF THIE BOOK CLUBS.   253
On the other hand, the clubs will not avail for
ushering into the world the books of fresh ambitious
authors. That paradise of the geniuses, in which
their progeny are to be launched fall sail, where
they are to encounter no risks, and draw all the
profits without discount or percentage, as yet exists
only in the imagination. It would not work very
satisfactorily to have a committee decreeing the
issues, and the remuneration to be paid to each
aspirant — ten  thousand  copies of Poppleton's
Epic, and a check for a thousand pounds handed
over out of tile common stock, to begin with —
half the issue, and half the remuneration for the
Lyrics of Astyagus, as a less robust and manful
production, but still a pleasant, murmuring, meandering, earnest little dream-book, fresh with the
solemn purpose of solitude and silence.  No, it
must be confessed our authors and men of letters
would make sad work of it, if they had the bestowal of the honors and pecuniary rewards of
literature in' their hands, whether these were administered by an intellectual hierarchy or by a collective democracy. Hence the clubs have wisely
confined their operations to books which are not
the works of their members; and to keep clear of
all risk of literary rivalries, they have been almost
exclusively devoted to the promulgation of the
works of authors long since dead, whether by
printing from original manuscripts or from rare
printed volumes.
It has been pleaded that this machinery might




254               HIS CLUB.
have been rendered influential for the encouragement of living authorship.  It has been, for instance, observed, with some plausibility, that he
who has the divine fervor of the author in him, will
sacrifice all he has to sacrifice -time, toil, and
health - so that he can but secure a hearing by the
world; and institutions of the nature of the book
clubs might afford him this at all events, leaving
him to find his way to wealth and honors, if the
sources of these are in him. No doubt the history
of book-publishing shows how small are the immediate inducements and the well-founded hopes that
will set authors in motion, and, indeed, a very large
percentage of valueless literature proves that the
barriers between the author and the world are not
very formidable, or become somehow easily removable. This, in fact, furnishes the answer to the
pleading here alluded to; and it may further be
safely said, where the book demanding an introduction professes to be a work of genius, addressing
itself to all mankind, that if it really be what it
professes, the market will get it. No production of
the kind is liable to be lost to the world.
Here it is plaintively argued by Philemon, that
the rewards of genius are very unequally distributed.
Who can deny it? Nothing is distributed with perfect balance like chemical equivalents in this world,
at least so far as mortal faculties are capable of estimating the elements of happiness and unhappiness
in the lot of our fellow-men; nor can one imagine
that a world, all balanced and squared off to per



STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS.   255
fection, would be a very tolerable place to live in.
Genius must take its chance, like all other qualities,
and, on the whole, in a civilized country it gets on
pretty well. Is it not something in itself to possess
genius? and is it seemly, or a good example to the
uninspired world, that its owner should deem it
rather a misfortune than a blessing because he is
not also surrounded by plush and shoulder-knots?
If all geniuses had a prerogative right to rank and
wealth, and all the pomps and vanities of this wicked
world, could we be sure that none but genuine
geniuses would claim them, and that there would
be no margin for disputation with " solemn shams "?
Milton's fifteen pounds are often referred to by him
who finds how hard it is to climb, &c.; but we
have no "return," as the blue-books call it, of all
the good opportunities afforded to intellects ambitious of arising as meteors but only showing themselves as farthing rush-lights. On the other hand,
no doubt, the wide fame and the rich rewards of
the popular author are not in every instance an exact measure of his superiority to the disappointed
aspirant.  His thousand pounds do not furnish
incontrovertible evidence that he is a hundred
times superior to the drudge who goes over as
much work for ten pounds, and there may possibly
be some one making nothing who is superior to
both.
Such aberrations are incident to all human affairs;
but in those of literature, as in many others, they
are exceptional. Here, as in other spheres of exer



256               HIS CLUB.
tion, merit will in the general case get its own in
some shape.  Indeed, there is a very remarkable
economic phenomenon, never, as it occurs to me,
fully examined, which renders the superfluous success of the popular author a sort of insurance fund
for enabling the obscure adventurer to enter the
arena of authorship, and show what he is worth.
Political economy has taught us that those old bugbears of the statute law called forestallers and
regraters are eminent benefactors, in as far as their
mercenary instincts enable them to see scarcity from
afar, and induce them to " hold on" precisely so
long as it lasts but no longer, since, if they have
stock remaining on hand when abundance returns,
they will be losers.  Thus, through the regular
course of trade, the surplus of the period of abundance is distributed over the period of scarcity with
a precision which the genius of a Joseph or a Turgot could not achieve.
The phenomenon in the publishing world to
which I have alluded has some resemblance to this,
and comes to pass in manner following. The confirmed popular author whose books are sure to sell
is an object of competition among publishers. If
he is absolutely mercenary, he may stand forth in
the public market and commit his works to that one
who will take them on the best terms for the author
and the worst for himself, like the contractor who
gives in the lowest estimate in answer to an advertisement from a public department. Neither undertaking holds out such chances of gain as indepen



STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS.  257
dent speculation may open, and thus there is an inducement to the enterprising publisher to risk his
capital on the doubtful progeny of some author unknown to fame, in the hope that it may turn out
"' a hit." Of the number of books deserving a better fate, as also of the still greater number deserving none better than the fate they have got, which
have thus been published at a dead loss to the publisher, the annals of bookselling could afford a moving history.
When an author has sold his copyright for a
comparative trifle, and the book turns out a great
success, it is of course matter of regret that he cannot have the cake he has eaten. This is one side of
the balance-sheet, and on the other stands the debit
account of the author who, through a work which
proved a dead loss to its publisher, has made a reputation which has rendered his subsequent books
successful, and made himself fashionable and rich.
There have been instances where publishers who
have bought for little the copyright of a successful
book have allowed the author to participate in their
gains; and I am inclined to believe that these instances are fully as numerous as those in which an
author, owing his reputation and success to a book
which did not pay its expenses, has made up the
losses of his first publisher.
If we go out of the hard market and look at the
tendency of sympathies, they are all in the author's
favor. Publishers, in fact, have, though it is not
generally believed, a leaning towards good litera



258               HIS CLUB.
ture, and a tendency rather to over than to under
estimate the reception it may meet with from the
world. In considering whether they will take the
risk of a new publication, they have nothing to
judge of it by except its literary merit, for they
cannot obtain the votes of the public until they are
committed; and, indeed, there have been a good
many instances where a publisher, having a faith
in some individual author and his star, has pushed
and fought a way for him with dogged and determined perseverance, sometimes with a success of
which, were all known, he has more of the real
merit than the author, who seems to have naturally, without any external aid, taken his position
among the eminent and fortunate.
There are, at the same time, special disquisitions
on matters of science or learning intended for peculiar and limited audiences, which find their way to
publicity without the aid of the publisher.  For
these there is an opening in certain institutions far
older than the book clubs, and possessed of a far
higher social and intellectual position, since they
have the means of conferring titles of dignity on
those they adopt into their circle - titles which are
worn not by trinkets dangling at the button-hole,
but by certain cabalistic letters strung to the name
in the directory of the town where the owner lives,
or in the numberless biographical dictionaries which
are to immortalize the present generation. So the
author of an essay, especially in scholarship or science, will, if it be worth anything, find a place for




STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS.   259
it in the Transactions of one or other of the learned
societies. It will probably keep company with, if
indeed it be not itself one of, a series of papers
which appear in the quarto volumes of the learned
corporation's Transactions, merely because they
cannot get into the octavo pages of the higher class
of periodicals; but there they are, printed in the
face of the world, whose inhabitants at large may
worship them if they so please, and their authors;
cannot complain that they are suppressed. Whether)
the authors of these papers may have been ambitious of their appearance in a wider sphere, or are
content with their appearance in "' The Transactions," it suffices for the present purpose to explain
how these volumes are a more suitable receptacle
than those printed by the book clubs for essays or
disquisitions by men following up their own specialties in literature or science; and if it be the case
that some of the essays which appear in the Transactions of learned bodies would have gladly entered
society under the auspices of some eminent periodical, yet it is proper at the same time to admit that
many of the most valuable of these papers, concerning discoveries or inventions which adepts alone can
appreciate, could only be satisfactorily published as
they have been. And so we find our way back to
the proposition, that the book clubs have been judiciously restricted to the promulgation of the works
of dead authors.
This has not necessarily excluded the literary
contributions of living men, in the shape of editing




260               HIS CLUB.
and commenting; and it is really difficult to estimate the quantity of valuable matter which is thus
deposited in obscure but still accessible places. A
deal of useful work, too, has been done in the way
of translation; and where the book to be dealt with
is an Icelandic saga, a chronicle in Saxon, in Irish
Celtic, or even in old Norman, one may confess to
the weakness of letting the original remain, in some
instances, unexamined, and drawing one's information with confiding gratitude from the translation
furnished by the learned editor.
Let me offer one instance of the important service that may be done by affording a vehicle for
translations.  The late Dr. Francis Adams, a village surgeon by profession, was at the same time,
from taste and pursuit, a profound Greek scholar.
He was accustomed to read the old authors on
medicine and surgery —a custom too little respected by his profession, of whom it is the characteristic defect to respect too absolutely the standard of the day. As a physician, who is an ornament
to his profession and a great scholar, once observed
to me, the writings of the old physicians, even if we
reject them from science, may be perused with profit
to the practitioner as a record of the diagnosis of
cases stated by men of acuteness, experience, and
accuracy of observation.  Adams had translated
from the Greek the works of Paul of Egina, the
father of obstetric surgery, and printed the first
volume. It was totally unnoticed, for in fact there
were no means by which the village surgeon could




THE  ROXBURGHE CLUB.           261
get it brought under the notice of the scattered
members of his profession who desired to possess
such a book. The remainder of his labors would
have been lost to the world had it not been taken
off his hands by the Sydenham Club, established
for the purpose of reprinting the works of the ancient physicians.
cbt URoxburge Club.
REAT institutions and small institutions
have each individually had a beginning,
though it cannot always be discovered,
distance often obscuring it before it has
been thought worth looking after.  There is an
ingenious theory abroad, to the effect that every
physical impulse, be it but a wave of a human hand,
and that every intellectual impulse, whether it pass
through the mind of a Newton or a brickmaker,
goes, with whatever strength it may possess, into a
common store of dynamic influences, and tells with
some operative power, however imperceptible and:
infinitesimal, upon all subsequent events, great or
small, so that everything tells on everything, and
there is no one specific cause, primary or secondary,
that can be assigned to any particular event. It
may be so objectively, as the transcendentalists say,,
but to common apprehensions there are specific facts,
which are to them emphatic as beginnings, such as



262               HIS CLUB.
the day when any man destined for leadership in
great political events was born, or that whereon the
Cape of Good Hope was doubled, or America was
discovered.
The beginning of the book clubs is marked by a
like distinctness, both in date and circumstance.
The institution did not spring in full maturity and
equipment, like Pallas from the brain of Jove; it
was started by a casual impulse, and remained long
insignificant; but its origin and early progress are
as distinctly and specifically its own, as the birth
and infancy of any hero or statesman are his. It is
to the garrulity of Dibdin writing before there was
any prospect that this class of institutions would
reach their subsequent importance and usefulness,
that we owe many minute items of detail about the
cradle of the new system.  We first slip in upon a
small dinner-party, on the 4th of June in the year
1818, at the table of " Hortensius."  The day was
one naturally devoted to hospitality, being the
birthday of the reigning monarch, George III., but
this the historian passes unnoticed, the object of all
absorbing interest being the great conflict of the
Roxburghe book sale, then raging through its forty-:and-one days. Of Hortensius, it is needless to know
more than that he was a distinguished lawyer, and
had a fine library, which having described, Dibdin
passes on thus to matters of more immediate importance.  " Nor is the hospitality of the owner of
these treasures of a less quality and calibre than his
taste; for Hortensius regaleth liberally- and as




THE ROXBURGHE CLUB.            263
the'night and day champagnes' (so he is pleased
humorously to call them) sparkle upon his Gottingen-manufactured table-cloth,'the master of the
revels,' or (to borrow the phraseology of Pynson)
of the' feste royalle,' discourseth lustily and loudly
upon the charms - not of a full-curled or full-bottomed'King's Bench' periwig —but of a fullmargined Bartholomoeus or Barclay like his own."'
After some forty pages of this sort of matter, we
get another little peep at this momentous dinnerparty. " On the clearance of the Gottingen-manufactured table-cloth, the Roxburghe battle formed
the subject of discussion, when I proposed that we
should not only be all present, if possible, on the
day of the sale of the Boccaccio, but that we should
meet at some' fair tavern' to commemorate the
sale thereof." They met accordingly on the 17th
of June, some eighteen in number, "at the St.
Albans Tavern, St. Albans Street, now Waterloo
Place." Surely the place was symbolical, since on
the 18th of June, three years afterwards, the battle
of Waterloo was fought; and as the importance
attributed to the contest at Roxburghe House on
the 17th procured for it afterwards the name of the
Waterloo of book-battles, it came to pass that there
were two Waterloo commemorations treading closely
one on the other's heels.
The pecuniary stake at issue, and the consequent
excitement when the Valdarfer Boccaccio was
knocked off, so far exceeded all anticipation, that at
1 Bibliographical Decameron, vol. iii. p. 28.




264                HIS CLUB.
the festive board a motion was made and carried by
acclamation, for meeting on the same day and in
the same manner annually. And so the Roxburghe
Club, the parent of all the book clubs, came into
existence.
It must be admitted that its origin bears a curious generic resemblance to some scenes which produce less elevating results.  On the day of some
momentous race or cock-fight, a parcel of sporting
devotees, "regular bricks," perhaps, agree to celebrate the occasion in a tavern, and when the hilarity of the evening is at its climax, some festive
orator, whose enthusiasm has raised him to the
table, suggests, amidst loud hurrahs and tremendous table-rapping, that the casual meeting should
be converted into an annual festival, to celebrate
the event which has brought them together. At
such an assemblage, the list of toasts will probably
include Eclipse, Cotherstone, Mameluke, Plenipo,
the Flying Dutchman, and other illustrious quadrupeds, along with certain bipeds, distinguished in
the second degree as breeders, trainers, and riders,
and may perhaps culminate in " the turf and the
stud all over the world." With a like appropriate
reference to the common bond of sympathy, the
Roxburghe toasts included the uncouth names of
certain primitive printers, as Valdarfer himself,
Pannartz, Fust, and Schoeffher, terminating in
"The cause of Bibliomania all over the world." 1
1 As of other influential documents, there have been various
versions of the Roxburghe list of toasts, and a corresponding




THE ROXBURGHE CLUB.                    265
The club thus abruptly formed consisted of
affluent collectors, some of them noble, with a
sprinkling of zealous practical men, who assisted
amount of critical discussion, which leaves the impression common to such disputes, that this important manifesto was altered
and enlarged from time to time. The version which bears the
strongest marks of completeness and authenticity, was found
among the papers of Mr. Hazlewood, of whom hereafter. It is
here set down as nearly in its original shape as the printer can
give it:ijce Orber of tc iostes,
ClMe Immortal  uCe1orX  of
3olrn Butte of 3oybturgbe.
Crfitoie)cr  ra{bar~fer, 3Vlfnter of tle 3ecamueron of 1471.
Qntembereg, J:Yust, ant(:cboeffber, tUPe  anbentors of tle  rtt
of Vrfotfing.
JJllilam Clayton, tie ffatber ot rbe 33rtftlfs Wress.
Danme iuliana Barnes, an't the St. Clbans 5ress.
Wans~n bn  e tic   orte, anti 3liciarlb JPnson, tle 3Cllustrious
Successors of l{fliam  g Carton.
_Oe Zlt{ne 1amnilv, at VTenice.
TI)e Giunta aframil, at ffIlorence.
Fl&e ~ocfetv of tle 3tibiopionfles at Carfs.
tie Vrospervft of tle Rqto3burgule (tiub.
EOte cause of 33ttbloomanfa all ober tile  tfodb.
It will be seen that this accomplished black letterer must have
been under a common delusion, that our ancestors not only wrote,
but pronounced the definite article " the " as " ye." Every blunderer ambitious of success in fabricating old writings is sure to
have recourse to this trick, which serves for his immediate detection. The Gothic alphabet, in fact, as used in this country, had
a Theta for expressing in one letter our present t and h conjoined.
When it was abandoned, some printers substituted for it the letter y as most nearly resembling it in shape, hence the "ye"




266                      HiS CL UB.
them   in  their great purchases, while  doing  minor
strokes of business for themselves. These who in
some measure fed on the crumbs that fell from  the
master's table were in a position rather too closely
resembling  the  professionals  in  a hunt or cricket
club. The circle was a very exclusive one, however; the number limited to thirty-one members,
6' one black ball excluding;" and it used to be remarked, that it was easier to get into the Peerage
or the Privy Council than into  " The Roxburghe."
which occurs sometimes in old books, but much more frequently
in modern imitations of t-lem.n
The primitive Roxburgheians used to sport these toasts as a
symbol of knowingness and high caste in book-hunting freemasonry. Their representative man happening on a tour in the
Highlands to open his refreshment wallet on the top of Ben
Lomond, pledged his guide in the potent vin du pays to Christopher Valdarfer, John Gutemberg, and the others. The Celt had
no objection in the world to pledge successive glasses to these
names, which he had no doubt belonged "to fery respectaple
persons," probably to the chief landed gentry of his entertainer's
neighborhood.  But the best Glenlivet would not induce him to
pledge "the cause of Bibliomania all over the world," being unable to foresee what influence the utterance of words so unusual
and so suspiciously savoring of demonology might exercise over
his future destiny.
* [The author must have forgotten for the moment his observations during his
reading of old books. In not a few English books of the century 1500 the use
of y for th is almost invariable, at the beginning of a monosyllable; and from
this the usage'varies to an only occasional substitution of the y. It seems to
me that Hazlewood's list of the Roxburghe toasts (so dry and dusty that it is
not surprising that such oceans of claret were needed to wash them down)
shows that he knew just the nature and the reason of this custom, and not
that he supposed " the " used to be pronounced ye. In the list the article
occurs many times, and only once as " ye." IHow did he pronounce it in the
other instances? Indeed, it is quite impossible that a man so familiar with old
books as Hazlewood was, could have been ignorant upon such a point. -W.]




THE ROXBURGHE CLUB.             267
Nothing has done so much to secure the potent
influence of clubs as the profound secrecy in which
their internal or domestic transactions have generally been buried.  The great safeguard of this
secrecy will be found in that rigid rule of our social
code which prohibits every gentleman from making
public the affairs of the private circle; and if from
lack of discretion, as it is sometimes gently termed,
this law is supposed to have a lax hold on any one,
he is picked off by the " one," "two," " three black
balls." It is singular that a club so small and exclusive as the Roxburghe should have proved au
exception to the rule of secrecy, and that the world
has been favored with revelations of its doings
which have made it the object of more amusement
than reverence. In fact, through failure of proper
use of the black ball, it got possession of a black
sheep, in the person of a certain Joseph Hazlewood.
He had achieved a sort of reputation in the bookhunting community by discovering the hidden author of Drunken Barnaby's Journal.  In reality,
however, he was a sort of literary Jack Brag. As
that amusing creation of Theodore Hook's practical
imagination mustered himself with sporting gentlemen through his command over the technicalities
or slang of the kennel and the turf, so did Hazlewood sit at the board with scholars and aristocratic
book-collectors through a free use of their technical
phraseology. In either case, if the indulgence in
these terms descended into a motley grotesqueness,
it was excused as excessive fervor carrying the en



268               HIS CL UB.
thusiast off his feet. When Hazlewood's treasures
- for he was a collector in his way - were brought
to the hammer, the scraps and odds and ends it contained were found classified in groups under such
headings as these - Garlands of Gravity, Poverty's Pot Pourri, Wallat of Wit, Beggar's Baldardash, Octagonal Olio, Zany's Zodiac, Noddy's
Nuncheon, Mumper's Medley, Quaffing Quavers to
Quip Queristers, Tramper's Twattle, or Treasure
and Tinsel from the Tewksbury Tank, and the
like. He edited reprints of some rare books —
that is to say, he saw them accurately reprinted
letter by letter. Of these one has a name which
— risking due castigation if I betray gross ignorance by the supposition -I think he must certainly have himself bestowed on it, as it excels the
most outrageous pranks of the alliterative age. It
is called "Green-Room  Gossip; or, Gravity Gallinipt; A Gallimaufry got up to guile Gymnastical and Gyneocratic Governments; Gathered and
garnished by Gridiron Gabble, Gent., Godson to
Mother Goose."
The name of Joseph Hazlewood sounds well; it
is gentleman-like, and its owner might have passed
it into such friendly commemoration as that of
Bliss, Cracherode, Heber, Sykes, Utterson, Townley, Markland, Hawtrey, and others generally understood to be gentlemen, and, in virtue of their
bookish propensities, scholars.  He might even,
for the sake of his reprints, have been thought an
"able editor," had it not been for his unfortunate




THE ROXBURGHE CLUB.                     269
efforts to chronicle the doings of the club he had
got into.' His history, in manuscript, was sold
1 A voice from the other side of the Atlantic reveals the portentous nature of the machinery with which Mr. Hazlewood
conducted his editorial labors. The following is taken from the
book on the Private Libraries of New York, already so freely
quoted.
"A unique book of unusual interest to the bibliophile in this
department is the copy of Ancient and Critical Essays upon
English Poets and Poesy, edited by Joseph Hazlewood, 2 vols.
4to, London, 1815. This is Hazlewood's own copy, and it is enriched and decorated by him in the most extravagant style of
the bibliomaniac school in which he held so eminent a position.
It is illustrated throughout with portraits, some of which are
very rare; it contains all the letters which the editor received in
relation to it from the eminent literary antiquarians of his day;
and not only these, but all the collations and memoranda of any
consequence which were made for him during its progress, frequently by men of literary distinction. To these are added all
the announcements of the work, together with the impressions
of twelve cancelled pages, printed four in one form and eight in
another, apparently by way of experiment, with other cancelled
matter; tracings of the fac-simile woodcuts of the title to Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, with a proof of it on India paper,
and three impressions of this title, one all in black, one with the
letter in black and the device in red, and the third vice versd;
tracings for, and proofs of, other woodcuts; an impression of a
leaf printed to be put into a single copy of the work, &c., &c.;
for we must stop, although we have but indicated the nature
rather than the quantity of the matter, all of it unique, which
gives this book its peculiar value. But it should be remarked
besides, that the editorial part of the work is interleaved for the
purpose of receiving Mr. IHazlewood's explanations and corrections, and those that he received from literary friends, which
alone would give this copy a singular interest. It is bound by
Clarke, in maroon Morocco." 
* [These volumes (which are in the collection of the editor of this book) certainly show a disposition on the part of the man who made them to have his




270                       HIS C(LUB.
with  his  other treasures  after  his  death, and  was
purchased by the proprietor of the Athenmum,
where fragments of it were printed some fifteen
years ago, along with editorial comments, greatly
to the amusement, if not to the edification, of the
public.
In these revelations we find how long a probation
the system of book clubs had to pass through, before
it shook off the convivial propensities which continued to cluster round the normal notion of a club,
and reached the dry asceticism and attention to the
duties of printing and editing, by which the greater
number of book clubs are distinguished. It was at
first a very large allowance of sack to the proportion
" nothings monstered."  They exhibit a perfect picture in little of the fussy,
finical way into which Dibdin had got book-loving people fifty years ago. And
yet we must remember that they were got up only for Hazlewood's own private
use and comfort. It is true, also, that the exaniination of them is a very entertaining process to those who take an interest in the making of books. We see
how a date is hunted up and verified, a fact established; how one friend was
working at Oxford in the Bodleian to help the editor upon this point, and anotherin his own antique library to furnish him information upon the other.
We see how one of a humbler rank sat up all night to do the heavy task of
writing out, punctuatim et literatim, a black-letter tract, that the press might
not be stopped. We see the trying of experiments, the rejection of plans, and
the reasons therefor; and in fact the working of the whole machinery which
was set a-going to produce the book; — and, indeed, much else beside. Thus
Ilazlewood's folly, if we must call it so, affords us some not irrational pleasure.
Hazlewood was an obscure but reputable solicitor, who, without any advantages of early education or of pecuniary success, worked his way to a very considerable knowledge of old English literature and a companionship with the
eminent black-letter scholars of his day. He lived in a somewhat dependent
position with a crusty old uncle, with whom he had not a feeling in common,
and who allowed him two little closet-like rooms at the top of the house, which
he managed to fill with books which after his death were sold for ~2500. We
owe to him, among other things, the reprints of the "Book of St. Albans,"'" The Mirrour for Magistrates," and " The Palace of Pleasure," together with
the larger part of " The Censura Literaria."  Let us be grateful to him for
what he did, and treat his foibles as we would have others treat our
own. — W.]




TIHE ROXBUR GHE CLUB.              271
of literary food, and it was sarcastically remarked
that the club had spent a full thousand pounds in
guzzling before it had produced a single valuable
volume.  We have some of the bills of fare at the
" Roxburghe Revels," as they were called. In one,
for instance, there may be counted, in the first
course, turtle cooked five different ways, along with
turbot, john dory, tendrons of lamb, soutee of haddock, ham, chartreuse, and boiled chickens. The
bill amounted to ~5 14s. a head; or, as Hazlewood
expresses it, " according  to the long-established
principles of' Maysterre Cockerre,' each person had
~5 14s. to pay." Some illustrious strangers appear
to have been occasionally invited to attend the symposium.  If the luxurious table spread for them
may have occasioned them some surprise, they must
have experienced still more in the tenor of the invitation to be present, which, coming in the name
of certain " Lions of literature," as their historian
and the author of the invitation calls them, was
expressed in these terms -" The honor of your
company is requested to dine with the Roxburghe
dinner, on Wednesday the 17th instant."'  One
might be tempted to offer the reader a fuller speci1 [The author has yielded himself too much to the guidance
of the editorial comments of the "Athenaum " which he previously mentions,- an exceedingly dishonorable and malicious
performance. It certainly would have become the distinguished
members of this club, the "revered of the Roxburghe " as Scott
calls them in " Woodstock," to look a little more carefully after
the wording of the invitation to their dinners. But they had
no hand in it; neither was "their historian," i. e. Hazlewood,




272                   RIS CLUB.
men of the historian's style; but unfortunately its
characteristics, grotesque as they are, cannot be
exemplified in their full breadth without being also
given at full length.  The accounts of the several
dinners read like photographs of a mind wandering
in the mazes of indigestion-begotten nightmare.'
When Dibdin protested against the publication
of this record, he described it a great deal too attractively when he called it " the concoction of one
in his gayer and unsuspecting moments — the repository of private confidential communications - a
mere memorandum-book of what had passed at conthe "author of the invitation," by which people were asked to
dine with a dinner. The author was the keeper of the tavern
at which the dinners were eaten!  See Dibdin's "Reminiscences," 1836, Vol. I. p. 378, -" and Mr. Richolds, the master
of the hotel, always filled up his printed circulars by asking us'to dine with the Roxburghe dinner.' " - W.]
1 It is but fair, however, to a reputation which was considerable within its own special circle, to let the reader judge for
himself; so, if he think the opportunity worth the trouble of
wading through small print, he may read the following specimen
of Mr. Hazlewood's style. He would certainly himself not have
objected to its being taken as a criterion of the whole, since he
was evidently proud of it.
" Consider, in the bird's-eye view of the banquet, the trencher
cuts, foh! nankeen displays: as intersticed with many a brilliant
drop to friendly beck and clubbish hail, to moisten the viands or
cool the incipient cayenne. No unfamished livery-man would
desire better dishes, or high-tasted courtier better wines. With
men that meet to commune, that can converse, and each willing
to give and receive information, more could not be wanting to
promote well-tempered conviviality —a social compound of
mirth, wit, and wisdom; combining all that Anacreon was famed
for, tempered with the reason of Demosthenes, and intersected




THE ROXBURGHE CLUB.                   273
vivial meetings, and in which' winged words' and
flying notes of merry gentlemen and friends were
obviously incorporated." No! certainly wings and
flying are not the ideas that naturally associate with
the historian  of the Roxburghe, although, in one
instance, the dinner is sketched off in the following
epigrammatic sentence, which startles the reader like
a plover starting up in a dreary moor: ---    Twentyone members met joyfully, dined comfortably, challenged eagerly, tippled prettily, divided regretfully,
and paid the bill most cheerfully." On another
occasion the historian's enthusiasm was too expanwith the archness of Scaliger. It is true, we had not any Greek
verses in praise of the grape; but we had, as a tolerable substitute, the ballad of the "Bishop of Hereford and Robin Hood,"
sung by Mr. Dodd, and it was of his own composing. It is true,
we had not any long. oration denouncing the absentees, the cabinet counsel, or any other set of men; but there was not a man
present that at one hour and seventeen minutes after the cloth
was removed but could have made a Demosthenic speech far
superior to any record of antiquity. It is true, no trace of wit is
going to be here preserved, for the flashes were too general, and
what is the critical sagacity of a Scaliger compared to our chairman?  Ancients believe it! We were not dead drunk, and
therefore lie quiet under the table for once, and let a few moderns be uppermost."
The following chronicle of the third dinner and second anniversary records an interesting little personal incident:" After Lord Spencer left the chair, it was taken, I believe, by
Mr. Heber, who kept it up to a late hour, —Mr. Dodd, very
volatile and somewhat singular, at the same time quite novel, in
amusing the company with Robin Hood ditties and similar productions. I give this on after report, having left the room very
early from severe attack of sickness, which appeared to originate
in some vile compound partook of at dinner."
18




274                HIS CLUB.
sive to be confined to plain prose, and he inflated it
in lyric verse:" Brave was the banquet, the red, red juice,
Hilarity's gift sublime,
Invoking the heart to kindred use,
And bright'ning halo of time."
This, and a quantity of additional matter of like
kind, was good fun to the scorners, and, whether
any of the unskilful laughed at it, scarcely made
even the judicious grieve, for they thought that
those who had embarked in such pompous follies
deserved the lash unconsciously administered to
them in his blunders by an unhappy member of
their own order.
In, fact, however, this was the youthful giant
sowing his wild oats. Along with them there lay
also, unseen at first, the seed of good fruit. Of these
was a resolution adopted at the second meeting, and
thus set forth by the historian in his own peculiar
style: -" It was proposed and concluded for each
member of the club to reprint a scarce piece of
ancient lore to be given to the members, one copy
to be on vellum for the chairman, and only as many
copies as members."
The earliest productions following on this resolution were on a very minute scale. One member,
stimulated to distinguish himself by " a merry conceited jest," reprinted a French morsel called " La
Contenance de la Table," and had it disposed of in
such wise, that as each guest opened his napkin




TIlE ROXBURGHE CLUB.            275
expecting to find a dinner-roll, le disclosed the
typographical treasure; it stands No. 6 on the list
of Roxburghe books, and is probably worth an
enormous sum. The same enthusiast reprinted in
a more formal manner a rarity called " News from
Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Dr. Fian,,
a notable sorcerer," &c. This same morsel was:
afterwards reprinted for another club, in a shape.
calculated almost to create a contemptuous contrast
between the infantine efforts of the Roxburghe and;
the manly labors of its robust followers. It is inserted as what the French call a piece justificative in
Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, edited for the Bannatyne,,
and there occupies ten of the more than 2000 pages
which make up that solid book.
It was not until the year 1827 that a step was
taken by the Roxburghe Club which might be called
its first exhibition of sober manhood.  Some of the
members, ashamed of the paltry nature of the volumes circulated in the name of the club, bethought
themselves of uniting to produce a book of national
value. They took Sir Frederick Madden into their
counsels, and authorized him to print eighty copies
of the old metrical romance of Havelok the Dane.
This gave great dissatisfaction to the historian, who
muttered how " a MS. not discovered by a member
of the club was selected, and an excerpt obtained,
not furnished by the industry or under the inspection of any one member, nor edited by a member;
but, in fact, after much pro and con, it was made a
complete hireling concern, truly at the expense of
the club, from the copying to the publishing."




276               HIS CLUB.
The value of this book has been attested by the
extensive critical examination it has received, and
by the serviceable aid it has given to all recent
writers on the infancy of English literature. It
was followed by another interesting old romance,
William and the Wer Wolf, valuable not only as a
specimen of early literature, but for the light it
throws on the strange wild superstition dealing with
the conversion of men into wolves, which has been
found so widely prevalent that it has received a sort
of scientific title in the word Lycanthropy.  These
two books made the reputation of the Roxburghe,
and proved an example and encouragement to the
clubs which began to arise more or less on its
model. It was a healthy protest against the Dibdinism which had ruled the destinies of the club,
for Dibdin had been its master, and was the Gamaliel at whose feet Hazlewood and others patiently sat.
Of the term now used, the best explanation I can
give is this, that in the selection of books - other
questions, such as rarity or condition, being set
aside, or equally balanced- a general preference is
to be given to those which are the most witless,
preposterous, and in every literary sense valueless
-which are, in short, rubbish. What is here
meant will be easily felt by any one who chooses
to consult the book which Dibdin issued under the
title of " The Library Companion, or the Young,Man's Guide and the Old Man's Comfort in the
Choice of a Library." This, it will be observed, is
not intended as a manual of rare or curious, or in




TlE ROXBURUGHE  CLUB.                277
any way peculiar books, but as the instruction of a
Nestor on the best books for study and use in all
departments of literature.   Yet one will look in
vain there for such names as Montaigne, Shaftesbury, Benjamin  Franklin, D'Alembert, Turgot,
Adam Smith, Malebranche, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Fenelon, Burke, Kant, Richter, Spinoza, Flechier, and many others. Characteristically enough, if
you turn up Rousseau, in the index you will find
Jean Baptiste, but not Jean  Jacques.  You will
search in vain for Dr. Thomas Reid, the metaphysician, but will readily find Isaac Reed, the editor.
If you look for Molinmus or Du MIoulin, it is not
there, but alphabetic vicinity gives you the good
fortune to become acquainted with "1 Moule, Mr.,
his Bibliotheca Heraldica."   The  name  Hooker
will be found, not to guide the reader to the Ecclesiastical Polity, but to Dr. Jackson  Hooker's
Tour in Iceland.  Lastly, if any one shall search
for Hartley on Man, he will find in the place it
might occupy, or has reference to, the editorial
services of" Hazlewood, Mr. Joseph." 1
1 [The author is running amzok against Dibdin, and I certainly
shall not stand in his way. Dibdin's "Library Companion " is
fairly open to all the fault he finds with it; though he omits saying that in spite of its defects and its offences it contains a great
deal of information which is really valuable to the book-buyer.
But there is yet none the less needed, and especially in this,
country, a hand-book which should be what Dibdin's work professes to be, and which should direct the young student, and:
protect the inexperienced buyer against worthless or inferior,
editions, guard him against superseded authors, inform him of'
current prices, and in fact enable him to obtain, without paying




278                  HIS CLUB.
Though the Roxlburghe, when it came under the
fostering care of the scholarly Botfield, and secured
the services of men like Madden, Wright, and Taylor, outgrew  the pedantries in which it had been
reared, and performed much valuable literary work,
yet its chief merit is in the hints its practice afforded to others.  The leading principle, indeed, which
the other clubs so largely adopted after the example
of the Roxburghe, was not an entire novelty.  The
idea of keeping up the value of a book by limiting
the impression, so as to restrain it within the number who might desire to possess it, was known before the birth of this the oldest book club. The
practice was sedulously followed by Hearne the
antiquary, and others, who provided old chronicles
and books of the class chiefly esteemed by the bookhunter. The very fame of the restricted number,
operating on the selfish jealousy of man's nature,
brought out competitors for the possession of the
book, who never would have thought of it but for
the pleasant idea of keeping it out of tile hands of,some one else.
There are several instances on record of an un-,dearly on the way, the best books upon the subjects which inAterest him.  Neither a Course of Reading, nor a Manual like
iLowndes's will do this. The book, although it should of course!be somewhat critical, might be of moderate size and price; for
it should of course be limited to the wants of people generally
who have literary tastes and purposes, but who have no time,or inclination for bibliography. Such folk as have special hobbies, or those who design the collection of great libraries, would,not need its help. - W.]




TIHE ROXBUR GIE CLUB.          279
known book lying in the printer's warerooms, dead
from birth and forgotten, having life and importance
given to it by the report that all the copies, save a
few, have been destroyed by a fire in the premises.
This is an illustration in the sibylline direction of
value being conferred by the decrease of the commodity; but by judiciously adjusting the number of
copies printed, the remarkable phenomenon has
been exhibited of the rarity of a book being increased by an increase in the number of copies. To
understand how this may come to pass, it is necessary to look on rarity as not an absolute and objective quality, but as relative to the number who
desire to possess the article. Ten copies which two
hundred people want constitute a rarer book than
two copies which twenty people want. A  book
may be the sole remaining copy - in technical language, may be unique - but nobody has heard of it,
and nobody wants it, so it stands quietly on its own
shelf uncoveted.  But let its owner print, say,
twenty copies for distribution- the book-hunting
community have got the' "hark-away," and are off
after it. In this way, before the days of the clubs,
many knowing people multiplied rarities; and at
the present day there are reprints by the clubs
themselves of much greater pecuniary value than
the rare books from which they have been imultiplied.




280               HIS ClLUB.
lome   3oolkc4lnb  Ilen.
0 one probably did more to raise the, -, #~ condition of the book clubs than Sir
Walter Scott. In 1823 the Roxburghe
made proffers of membership to him,
partly, it would seem, under the influence of a waggish desire to disturb his great secret, which had
not yet been revealed. Dibdin, weighting himself
with more than his usual burden of ponderous
jocularity, set himself in motion to intimate to
Scott the desire of the club that the Author of
Waverley, with whom it was supposed that he had
the means of communicating, would accept of the
seat at the club vacated by the death of Sir Mark
Sykes.  Scott got through the affair ingeniously
with a little coy fencing that deceived no one, and
was finally accepted as the Author of Waverley's
representative. The Roxburghe had, however, at
that time, done nothing in serious book-club business, having let loose only the small flight of flimsy
sheets of letterpress already referred to.  It wAas
Scott's own favorite club, the Bannatyne, that first
projected the plan of printing substantial and valuable volumes.
At the commencement of the same year, 1823,
when he took his seat at the Roxburghe (he did not
take his bottle there, which was the more important object, for some time after), he wrote to the




SOME BOOK-CLUB  UMEN.           281
late Robert Pitcairn, the editor of the Criminal
Trials, in these terms: —" I have long thought
that a something of a bibliomaniacal society might
be formed here, for the prosecution of the important task of publishing dilettante editions of our national literary curiosities. Several persons of rank,
I believe, would willingly become members, and
there are enough of good operatives.  What would
you think of such an association?  David Laing
was ever keen for it; but the death of Sir Alexander Boswell and of Alexander Oswald has damped
his zeal. I think, if a good plan were formed, and
a certain number of members chosen, the thing
would still do well." 1
Scott gave the Bannatyners a song for their festivities. It goes to the tune of "' One Bottle More,"
and is a wonderful illustration of his versatile powers in the admirable bibulous sort of joviality which
he distils, as it were, from the very dust of musty
volumes.  Two of the strangest characters that literature ever produced, or who ever joined the bookhunt, are hit off in the following stanzas- the
snarling Pinkerton, and Ritson, who, though he
had lived an unbeliever, in eternal quarrels with
the rest of his kind, on his death-bed found just
one sin to repent of- an act of apostasy to his
vegetarian faith, in having, when tired and wet
after a long pedestrian journey, eaten a potato
fried in fat:1 Notices of the Bannatyne Club, privately printed.




282                  HIS CLUB.
"John Pinkerton next, and I'm truly concerned
I can't call that worthy so candid as learned;
He raIied at the plaid, and blasphemed the claymore,
And set Scots by the ears in his one volume more.
One volume more, my friends, one volume more -
Celt and Scot shall be pleased with one volume more.
"As bitter as gall, and as sharp as a razor,
And feeding on herbs as a Nebuchadnezzar,
His diet too acid, his temper too sour,
Little Ritson came out with his two volumes more.
But one volume, my friends, one volume more -
We'll dine on roast beef, and print one volume more."
Scott printed, as a contribution to his favorite
club, the record of the trial of two Highlanders for
murder, which brought forth some highly characteristic incidents.  The victim  was a certain Sergeant
Davis, who had charge of one of the military parties or guards dispersed over the Highlands to keep
them in order after the'45. Davis had gone from
his own post at Braemar up Glen Clunie to meet
the guard from  Glenshee.  He chose to send his
men back and take a day's shooting among the wild
mountains at the head of the glen, and was seen no
more.  How  he was disposed of could easily be
divined in a general way, but there were no particulars to be had. It happened, however, that there
was one Highlander who, for reasons best known to
himself — they were never got at — had come to
the resolution of bringing his brother Highlanders,
who had made away with the sergeant, to justice.
It was necessary for his own safety, however, that
he should be under the pressure of a motive or im



SOME BOOK-CLUB JMEN.           283
pulse sufficient to justify so heartless and unnatural
a proceeding, otherwise he would himself have been
likely to follow the sergeant's fate.  Any reference
to his conscience, the love of justice, respect for the
laws of the land, or the like, would of course have
been received with well-merited ridicule and scorn.
He must have some motive which a sensible Highlander could admit as probable in itself, and sufficient for its purpose.
Accordingly, the accuser said he had been visited
by the sergeant's ghost, who had told him everything, and laid on him the heavy burden of bringing his slaughterers in the flesh to their account.
If that were not done, the troubled spirit would not
cease to walk the earth, and so long as he walked
would the afflicted denouncer continue to be the
victim of his ghostly visits.  The case was tried
at Edinburgh, and though the evidence was otherwise clear and complete, the Lowland jury were
perplexed and put out by the supernatural episode.
A Highland story with a ghost acting witness at
second hand, roused all their Saxon prejudices, and
they cut the knot of difficulties by declining to convict. A point was supposed to have been made,
when the counsel for the defence asked the ghostseer what language the ghost, who was English
when in the flesh, spoke to the Highlander, who
knew not that language; and the witness answered,
through his interpreter, that the spectre spoke as
good Gaelic as ever was heard in Lochaber. Sir
Walter Scott, however, remarks that there was no




284               IiS CL UB.
incongruity in this, if we once get over the first
step of the ghost's existence.  It is curious that
Scott does not seem to have woven the particulars
of this affair into any one of his novels.
Among those who contributed to place the stamp
of a higher character on the labors of the book
clubs, one of the most remarkable was Sir Alexander Boswell. A time there was, unfortunately,
when his name could not easily be dissociated from
exasperating political events, but now that the generation concerned in them has nearly passed away,
it becomes practicable, even from the side of his
political opponents, to glance at his literary abilities
and accomplishments without recalling exciting rec.
ollections.  He was a member of the Roxburghe,
and though he did not live to see the improvement
in the issues of that institution, or the others which
kept pace with it, he, alone and single-handed, set
the example of printing the kind of books which it
was afterwards the merit of the book clubs to promulgate. He gave them, in fact, their tone. He
had at his paternal home of Auchinleck a remarkable collection of rare books and manuscripts; one
of these afforded the text from which the romance
of Sir Tristrem was printed.  He reprinted from
the one remaining copy in his own possession the
disputation between John Knox and Quentin Kennedy, a priest who came forward against the great
Reformer as the champion of the old religion.
From the Auchinleck Press came also reprints of
Lodge's Fig for Momus, Churchyard's Mirrour of




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN.             285
Man, the Book of the Chess, Sir James Dier's
Rernembrancer of the Life of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
the Dialogus inter Deum et Evam, and others.
The possession of a private printing-press is, no
doubt, a very appalling type of bibliomania. Much
as has been told us of the awful scale in which
drunkards consume their favored poison, one is not
accustomed to hear of their setting up private stills
for their own individual consumption.  There is a
Sardanapalitan excess in this bibliographical luxuriousness which refuses to partake with other vulgar
mortals in the common harvest of the public press,
but must itself minister to its own tastes and demands.  The owner of such an establishment is
subject to no extraneous caprices about breadth of
margins, size of type, quarto or folio, leaded or unleaded lines; he dictates his own terms; he is master of the situation, as the French say; and is the
true autocrat of literature. There have been several renowned private presses: Walpole's, at Strawberry Hill; Mr. Johnes's, at Hafod; Allan's, at the
Grange; and the Lee Priory Press. None of these,
however, went so distinctly into the groove afterwards followed by the book clubs as Sir Alexander
Boswell's Auchinleck Press. In the Bibliographical Decameron is a brief history, by Sir Alexander
himself, of the rise and progress of his press.  He
tells us how he had resolved to print Knox's Disputation: " For this purpose I was constrained to
purchase two small fonts of black letter, and to
have punches cut for eighteen or twenty double




286               HIS CLUB.
letters and contractions.  I was thus enlisted and
articled into the service, and being infected with
the type fever, the fits have periodically returned.
In the year 1815, having viewed a portable press
invented by Mr. John Ruthven, an ingenious printer
in Edinburgh, I purchased one, and commenced compositor. At this period, my brother having it in
contemplation to present Bamfield to the Roxburghe Club, and not aware of the poverty andinsignificance of my establishment, expressed a
wish that his tract should issue from the Auchinleck Press. I determined to gratify him, and the
portable press being too small for general purposes,
I exchanged it for one of Mr. Ruthven's full-sized
ones; and having increased my stock to eight small
fonts, roman and italic, with the necessary appurtenances, I placed the whole in a cottage, built originally for another purpose, very pleasantly situated
on the bank of a rivulet, and, although concealed
irom view by the surrounding wood, not a quarter
of a mile from my house." 1
To show the kind of mall who cooperated with
Scott in such frivolities, let me say a word or two
more about Sir Alexander.  He was the son, observe, of Johnson's Jamie Boswell, but he was
about as like his father as an eagle might be to a
peacock. To use a common colloquial phrase, he
was a man of genius, if ever there was one. Had
he been a poorer and socially humbler man than he
was - had he had his bread and his position to
1 Bibliographical Decameron, ii. 454.




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN.                287
make- he would probably have achieved immortality. Some of his songs are as familiar to the
world as those of Burns, though their author is
forgotten, - as, for instance, the song of parental
farewell, beginning -
"Good-night, and joy be wi' ye a';
Your harmless mirth has cheered my heart,"
and ending with this fine and genial touch"The auld will speak, the young maun hear;
Be canty, but be good and leal;
Your ain ills aye hae heart to bear,
Another's aye hae heart to feel;
So, ere I set I'll see you shine,
I'll see you triumph ere I fa',
My parting breath shall boast you mine.
Good-night, and joy be wi' you a'."
His "Auld Gudeman, ye're a drucken carle,"
" Jenny's Bawbee," and " Jenny dang the Weaver,"
are of another kind, and perhaps fuller of the peculiar spirit of the man. This consisted in hitting off
the deeper and typical characteristics of Scottish life
with an easy touch that brings it all home at once.
His lines do not seem as if they were composed by
an effort of talent, but as if they were the spontaneous expressions of nature.
Take the following specimen of ludicrous pomposity, which must suffer a little by being quoted
from memory; it describes a highland procession"Come the Grants o' Tullochgorum
Wi' their pipers on-afore'em;
Proud the mithers are that bore'em,
Fee fuddle, fau fum.




288                HIS CLUB.
"Come the Grants o' Rothiemurchus,
Ilka ane his sword and durk has,
Ilka ane as proud's a Turk is,
Fee fuddle, fau fum."
To comprehend the spirit of this, one must endow himself with the feelings of a Lowland Scot
before Waverley and Rob Roy imparted a glow of
romantic interest to the Highlanders. The poinpous and the ludicrous were surely never more
happily interwoven.  One would require to go farther back still to appreciate the spirit of" Skeldon
Haughs, or the Sow is Flitted." It is a picture of
old Border feudal rivalry and hatred. The Laird
of Bargainy resolved to humiliate his neighbor and
enemy, the Laird of Kerse, by a forcible occupation
of part of his territory. For the purpose of making
this aggression flagrantly insulting, it was done by
tethering or staking a female pig on the domain of
Kerse. The animal was, of course, attended by a
sufficient body of armed men for her protection.  It
was necessary for his honor that the Laird of Kerse
should drive the animal and her attendants away,
and hence came a bloody battle about the flitting of
the sow. In the contest, Kerse's eldest son and
hope, Jock, is killed, and the point or moral of the
narrative is, the contempt with which the old laird
looks on that event, as compared with the grave
affair of flitting the sow. A retainer who comes to
tell him the result of the battle stammers in his narrative on account of his grief for Jock, and is thus
pulled up by the laird -




SOME BOOK-CLUB AIET.              289
"' Is the sow flitted?' cries the carle,'Gie me my answer, short and plain -
Is the sow flitted, yammerin' wean'"
To which the answer is,"' The sow, deil tak her,'s ower the water,
And at their back the Crawfords clatter;
The Carrick couts are cowed and bitted.'"
Hereupon the laird's exultation breaks forth,."'My thumb for Jock -the sow's flitted."'
Another man of genius and learning, whose name
is a household one among the book clubs, is Robert
Surtees, the historian of Durham. You may hunt
for it in vain among the biographical dictionaries.
Let us hope that this deficiency will be well supplied in the Biographia Britannica, projected by
Mr. Murray.  Surtees was not certainly among
those who flare their qualities before the world —
he was to a peculiar degree addicted, as we shall
shortly see, to hiding his light under a bushel; and
so any little notice of him in actual flesh and blood,
such as this left by his friend, the Rev. James Tate,
raster of Richmond School, interests one --
" One evening I was sitting alone - it was about
nine o'clock in the middle of summer - there came
a gentle tap at the door. I opened the door myself,
and a gentleman said with great modesty,'Mr.
Tate, I am  Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth.  James
Raine begged I would call upon you.'' The master of Richmond School is delighted to see you,'
said I;'pray walk in.''No, thank you, sir; I
19




290                   HIS CLUB.
have ordered a bit of supper; perhaps you will
walk up with me?'' To be sure I will;' and away
we went. As we went along, I quoted a line fiom
tile Odyssey.  What was my astonishment to hear
from  Mr. Surtees, not the next only, but line after
line of the passage I had touched upon.  Said I to
myself,' Good Master Tate, take heed; it is not
often you catch such a fellow as this at Richmond.'
I never spent such an evening in my life."   What
a pity, then, that he did not give us more of the
evening, which seems to have left joyful memories
to both; for Surtees himself thus commemorated it
in Macaronics, in which he was an adept"IDoctus Tatius hic residet,
Ad Coronam prandet ridet,
Spargit sales cum eachinno,
Lepido ore et concinno,
Ubique earus inter bonos
Rubei montis proesens honos." 1
1 [In macaronics? The author's memory must have failed
him for a moment, or all other writers are wrong in supposing
that a mixture of two languages, both being used as one, each
being often subjected to the grammatical inflections of the other,
is essential to the macaronic style. Thus, the lines beginning -
"Trumpeter unus erat
Qui scarletum coatum habebat,"
are macaronic. And perhaps this specimen of the style is good
enough and not too well known to be quoted entire in illustration -
"FELIS ET MURES.
"Felis sedit by a hole;
Intentus he, cum omni soul,
Prendere rats.




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN.                       291
In the same majestic folio in which this anecdote
may be found —the Memoir prefixed to the HisMice cucurrerunt over the floor,
In nuinero duo, tres, or more -
Obliti cats.
" Fellis saw them, oculis,
I'll have them, inquit he, I guess -
Dum ludunt.
Tune ille crept toward the group,
Habeam, dixit, good rat soup -
Pingues sunt.
"Mice continued all ludere,
Intenti they in ludum vere -
Gaudenter.
Tune rushed the felis into them,
Et tore them omnes limb from limb -
Violenter.
MORAL.
"Mures omnes nune be shy,
Et aurem proebe mihi -
Benigne.
Sic ho! facis, " verbum sat,"
Avoid a devilish big tomcat
Studiose!"
The lines quoted in the text from Surtees are mere dog Latin
in the stanza and style of Drunken Barnaby. The reader who
is at all curious about macaronic poetry cannot do better than to
consult M. Octave Delepierre's Macaronea, ou Mllelanges de Litterature Miacaroniqzee des Difierents Peuples de l'Europe. 8vo. Paris,
1852. He will find in it some learning, but not much entertainment; which is the fault of the subject rather than of the author.
From macaronic verse to verse written for the sake of rhyme,
is such an easy transition that I may be excused for adding here
the following lines, which I owe to a friend. And although I
must say that I think he might have been better employed than




292                   HIS CLUB.
tory of Durham -  we are likewise told how, when
at college, he was waiting on a Don on business;
and, feeling coldish, stirred the fire.  " Pray, Mr.
Surtees," said the great man, " do you think that
any other undergraduate in the college would have
taken that liberty? "   " Yes, Mr. Dean," was the
reply -" any one as cool as I am!"   This would
have been not unworthy of Brummell.  The next
is not in Brummell's line. Arguing with a neighbor about his not going to church, the man said,
" Why, sir, the parson and I have quarrelled about
the tithes."  "You fool," was the reply, "is that
any reason why you should go to hell? " Yet another. A poor man, with a numerous family, lost
his only cow. Surtees was collecting a subscription to replace the loss, and called on the Bishop
of Lichfield, who was Dean of Durham, and owner
of the great tithes in the parish, to ascertain what
in writing such stuff, yet the indulgent reader will perhaps pardon him for showing that the discussion in recent numbers of the
London "Athenaeum " upon the possibility of a rhyme to step,
and the decision that none exists, are not well founded: -
HORSE-BREAKER AND GREY-MARE.
"Aurelia, prettiest of horse-breakers,
Caught Nobleigh, lord of many acres.
But this time, so it came to pass,
Instead of horse, she tamed an ass.
None of his friends will e'er dispute it;
For he, while struggling to refute it,
Was blindly led on, step by step,
To marry the fair demi-rep.
And seeking but a female Rarey,
He got a wife somewhat grey-mare-y." - W.]




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEEN.           293
he would give. " Give! " said the Bishop, " why,
a cow, to be sure. Go, Mr. Surtees, to my steward, and tell him to give you as much money as
will buy the best cow you can find."  Surtees,
astonished at this unexpected generosity, said —
"My Lord, I hope you will ride to heaven upon
the back of that cow."  A while afterwards he was
saluted in the college by the late Lord Barrington,
with —"Surtees, what is the absurd speech that
I hear you have been making to the dean? " " I
see nothing absurd in it," was the reply; "when
the dean rides to heaven on the back of that cow,
many of your prebendaries will be glad to lay hold
of her tail."
I have noted these innocent trifles concerning
one who is chiefly known as a deep and dry investigator, for the purpose of propitiating the reader in
his favor, since the sacred cause of truth renders
it necessary to refer to another affair in which his
conduct, however trifling it might be, was not innocent. He was addicted to literary practical jokes
of an audacious kind, and carried his presumption
so far as to impose on Sir Walter Scott a spurious
ballad which has a place in the Border Minstrelsy.
Nor is it by any means a servile imitation, which
might pass unnoticed in a crowd of genuine and
better ballads; but it is one of the most spirited
and one of the most thoroughly endowed with in —
dividual character in the whole collection.  This,
guilty composition is known as " The Death of
Featherstonhaugh," and begins thus —




294                   HIS CLUB.
"Hoot awa', lads, hoot awa';
Ha' ye heard how the Ridleys, and Thirlwalls, and a',
Ha' set upon Albany Featherstonhaugh,
And taken his life at the Dead Man's Haugh?
There was Williemoteswick
And Hardriding Dick,
And Hughie of Hawdon, and Will of the Wa',
I canna tell a'. I canna tell a',
And many a mair that the deil may knaw.
"The auld man went down, but Nicol his son
Ran away afore the fight was begun;
And he run, and he run,
And afore they were done
There was many a Featherston gat sic a stun,
As never was seen since the world begun.
I canna tell a', I canna tell a',
Some got a skelp, and some got a claw,
But they gar't the Featherstons haud their jaw.
Some got a hurt, and some got nane,
Some had harness, and some got staen."
This imposture, professing to be taken down
from  the recitation of a woman eighty years old,
was accompanied with some explanatory notes,
characteristic  of  the  dry  antiquary,  thus: —' cHardriding Dick is not an epithet referring to
horsemanship, but means Richard Ridley of Hardriding, the seat of another family of that name,
*which, in the time of Charles I., was sold on ac-,count of expenses incurred by the loyalty of the
proprietor, the immediate ancestor of Sir Matthew
Ridley.   Will o' the Wa' seems to be William
Ridley of Walltown, so called from  its situation
on  the  great  Roman  wall.   Thirlwall  Castle,
-whence the clan of Thirlwalls derived their name,




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN.             295
is situated on the small river of Tippell, near the
western boundary of Northumberland.  It is near
the wall, and takes its name from the rampart
having been thirled —that is, pierced or breached
- in its vicinity."
In the Life of Surtees, the evidence of the crime
is thus dryly set forth, in following up a statement
of the transmission of the manuscript, and of its
publication: —" Yet all this was a mere figment
of Surtees's imagination, originating probably in
some whim of ascertaining how far he could identify himself with the stirring times, scenes, and
poetical compositions which his fancy delighted to
dwell on.  This is proved by more than one copy
among his papers of this ballad, corrected and interlined, in order to mould it to the language, the
manners, and the feelings of the period and of the
district to which it refers.  Mr. Surtees no doubt
had wished to have the success of his attempt tested
by the unbiassed opinion of the very first authority
on the subject; and the result must have been gratifying to him."
In Scott's acknowledgment of the contribution,
printed also in the Life of Surtees, there are some
words that must have brought misgivings and fear
of detection to the heart of the culprit, since Scott,
without apparently allowing doubts to enter his
mind, yet marked some peculiarities in the piece,
in which it differed from others. 6 "Your notes upon
the parties concerned give it all the interest of
authority, and it must rank, I suppose, among




296               HIS CLUB.
those half-serious, half-ludicrous songs, in which
the poets of the Border delighted to describe what
they considered as the sport of swords. It is perhaps remarkable, though it may be difficult to guess
a reason, that these Cumbrian ditties are of a different stanza and character, and obviously sung to a
different kind of music, from those on the northern
Border. The gentleman who collected the words
may perhaps be able to describe the tune."
There is perhaps no system of ethics which lays
down with perfect precision the moral code on literary forgeries, or enables us to judge of the exact
enormity of such offences. The world looks leniently on them, and sometimes sympathizes with them
as good jokes.  Allan Cunningham did not lose his
designation of " honest Allan" by the tremendous
" rises" which he took out of Cromek about those
remains of Nithsdale and Galloway song —a case
in point so far as principle goes, but differing somewhat in the intellectual rank of the victim to the
hoax. The temptation to commit such offences is
often extremely strong, and the injury seems slight,
while the offender probably consoles himself with
the reflection that he can immediately counteract
it by confession. Vanity, indeed, often joins conscientiousness in hastening on a revelation. Surtees,
however, remained in obdurate silence, and I am
not aware that any edition of the Minstrelsy draws
attention to his handiwork. Lockhart seems not
only to have been ignorant of it, but to have been
totally unconscious of the risk of such a thing, since




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN.                 297
he always speaks of its author as a respectable local
antiquary, useful to Scott as a harmless drudge.
Perhaps Surtees was afraid of what he had done,
like that teller in the House of Commons who is
said by tradition to have attempted to make a bad
joke in the division on the Habeas Corpus Act by
counting a fat man as ten, and, seeing that the
trick passed unnoticed, and also passed the measure,
became afraid to confess it.
The literary history of "The Death of Featherstonhaugh " naturally excited uneasiness about the
touching ballad of " Barthram's Dirge," also contributed to the Minstrelsy as the fruit of the industrious investigations of Surtees.  Most readers will
remember this
"They shot him dead at the Nine-Stone Rig,
Beside the headless cross,
And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the moor and moss."
After this stanza, often admired for its clearness
as a picture, there is a judicious break, and then
come stanzas originally deficient in certain words,
which, as hypothetically supplied by Surtees, were
good-naturedly allowed to remain within brackets,
as ingenious suggestions:"They made a bier of the broken bough,
The sauch and the aspine gray,
And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
And waked him there all day.
"A lady came to that lonely bower,
And threw her robes aside;
She tore her ling [long] yellow hair,
And knelt at Barthram's side.




298                  HIS CLUB.
"She bathed him in the Lady Well,
His wounds sae deep and sair,
And she plaited a garland for his breast,
And a garland for his hair."
A glance at the reprint of the Life of Surtees for
the h)ook club called after his name, confirms the
suspicions raised by the exposure of the other ballad
- this also is an imposition.'
Altogether, such  affairs create  an  unpleasant
uncertainty about the paternity of that delightful
department of literature, our ballad poetry. Where
next are we to be disenchanted?  Of the way in
which ancient ballads have come into existence,
there is one sad example within my own knowledge. Some mad young wags, wishing to test the
critical powers of an experienced collector, sent him
a new-made ballad, which they had been enabled
to secure only in a fragmentary form.  To the surprise of its fabricator, it was duly printed; but what
naturally raised his surprise to astonishment, and
revealed to him a secret, was, that it was no longer
a fragment, but a complete ballad, - the collector,
in the course of his industrious inquiries among the
peasantry, having been so fortunate as to recover
the missing fragments! It was a case where neither
1 The editor of the Life prints the following note by Mr. Raine,
the coadjutor of Surtees in his investigations into the history of
the North of England:-"I one evening in looking through
Scott's Minstrelsy wrote opposite to this dirge aut Robertus aut
Diabolus. Surtees called shortly after, and, pouncing upon the
remark, justified me by his conversation on the subject, in adding to my note itca, teste seiPso," p. 87.




SOME BOOKC-CLUB MEN.           299
could say anything to the other, though Cato might
wonder, quod non rideret harusvex, haruspicene cum
vidisset.  This ballad has been printed in more
than one collection, and admired as an instance of
the inimitable simplicity of the genuine old versions!
It may perhaps do something to mitigate Surtees's offence in the eye of the world, that it was
he who first suggested to Scott the idea of improving the Jacobite insurrections, and, in fact, writing
Waverley. In the very same letter, quoted above,
where Scott acknowledges the treacherous gift, he
also acknowledges the hints he has received; and,
mentioning the Highland stories he had imbibed
from old Stewart of Invernahyle, says, " I believe
there never was a man who united the ardor of a
soldier and tale-teller - or man of talk, as they call
it in Gaelic - in such an excellent degree; and as
he was as fond of telling as I was of hearing, I became a violent Jacobite at the age of ten years old;
and even since reason and reading came to my
assistance, I have never got rid of the impression
which the gallantry of Prince Charles made on my
imagination. Certainly I will not renounce the idea
of doing something to preserve these stories, and
the memory of times and manners which, though
existing as it were yesterday, have so strangely
vanished from our eyes."
So much for certain men of mark whose pursuits
or hobbies induced them to cluster round the cradle
of this new literary organization. When it was full




300               HIS CLUB.
grown it gathered about it a large body of systematic workers, who had their own special departments bin the great republic of letters. To offer a
just and rdiscriminating account of these men's services would draw me through an extensive tract of
literary biography.
There is a shallow prejudice very acceptable to
all blockheads, that men who are both learned and
laborious must necessarily be stupid. It is best to
meet the approach of such a prejudice at once, by
saying that the editors of club books are not mere
dreary drudges, seeing the works of others accurately through the press, and attending only to
dates and headings. Around and throughout the
large library of volumes issued by these institutions,
there run prolific veins of fresh literature pregnant
with learning and ability. The style of work thus
set a-going has indeed just the other day been incorporated into a sort of department of state literature,
since the great collection called "The Chronicles
and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during
the Middle Ages," of which the Master of the Rolls
accepts the responsibility, is carried out in the very
spirit of the book clubs, in which indeed most of the
editors of the Chronicles have been trained.
Without prejudice to others, let me just name a
few of those to whom the world is under obligation for services in this field of learned labor. For
England, there are James Orchard Halliwell, Sir
Frederic Madden, Beriah Botfield, Sir Henry Ellis,
Alexander Dyce, Thomas Stapleton, William J.




SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN.           301
Thorns, Crofton Croker, Albert Way, Joseph Hunter, John Bruce, Thomas Wright, John Gough
Nichols, Payne Collier, Joseph Stevenson, and
George Watson Taylor, who edited that curious
and melancholy book of poems, composed by the
Duke of Orleans while he was a prisoner in England after the battle of Agincourt —poems composed, singularly enough, in the English language,
and at a period extremely deficient in native vernacular literature.
In Scotland, it was in the earlier issues of the
Bannatyne that Thomas Thomson, too indolent
or fastidious to commit himself to the writing of a
book, left the most accessible vestiges of that power
of practically grasping historical facts and conditions, which Scott admired so greatly, and acknowledged so much benefit from. He was followed by
Professor Innes, who found and taught the secret
of extracting from ecclesiastical chartularies, and
other early records, the light they throw upon the
social condition of their times, and thus collected
matter for the two pleasant volumes which have
become so popular. The Bannatyne Club lately
finding no more to do, wound up with a graceful
compliment to David Laing, the man to whom,
after Scott, it has been most indebted. And, lastly,
it is in the Scotch book clubs that Joseph Robertson has had the opportunity of exercising those
subtle powers of investigation and critical acumen,
peculiarly his own, which have had a perceptible
and substantial effect in raising archaeology out of




302                  HIS CLUB.
that quackish repute which it had long to endure
under the name of antiquarianism. For Ireland, of
which I have something further to say at length,
let it suffice in the mean time to name Dean Butler, Dr. Reeves, Mr. O'Donovan, Mr. Eugene
Curry, and Dr. Henthorn Todd.
There is another and distinct class of services
which have been performed through the medium
of the club books. The Roxburghe having been
founded on the principle that each member should
print a volume, to be distributed among his colleagues, an example was thus set to men of easy fortune and scholarly tastes, which has been followed
with a large liberality, of which the public have probably but a faint idea. Not only in those clubs founded
on the reciprocity system of each member distributing and receiving, but in those to be presently noticed, where the ordinary members pay an annual
sum to be expended in the printing of their books,
have individual gentlemen came forward and borne
the expense of printing and distributing costly volumes.1 In some instances valuable works have thus
1 [The author's remark, that the British public "have probably but a faint idea" of the liberality with which individuals
among his countrymen have printed and distributed costly volumes, makes it proper to observe that there is probably here,
and certainly abroad, a similar ignorance of a similar generous
and public-spirited practice among men of some means (though
not always of wealth) and of literary tastes in this country.
The books thus printed as gifts generally refer to the early history of our nation, or to the antiquities of the land in which it
has fallen to our lot to supplant barbarism by civilization. Of
course very small editions are printed; and these are given ex



SOME BOOK-CLUB MllEN.                 303
been presented to the members at the cost of those
who have also undergone the literary labor of editing them.
There is something extremely refined and gentlemanlike in this form  of liberality.  The recipient
of the bounty becomes the possessor of a handsome
costly book without being subjected in any way to
the obligation of receiving a direct gift at the hands
of the munificent donor; for the recipient is a sort
of corporation - a thing which the lawyers say has
no personal responsibility and no conscience, and
which all the world knows to have no gratitude.
elusively to students, public institutions, and collectors. For
collecting books upon the history of our nation, of our people
during their colonial condition, and of the American races whom
we have displaced, has so long been a special literary object,
and has been so eagerly pursued, that the demand has created
a special department of the book-trade, and scarce books upon
America, the English colonies in America, the United States, or
the several States, bring prices which seem absurd when compared with their intrinsic value. So directly at variance with
the truth is Sir Archibald Alison's assertion that we are " wholly
regardless of historical records or monuments," and that future
historians will therefore be obliged " to write the history of the
present generation from the archives of other lands; " for which
thought, by the way, he is indebted to one of the few errors of
the candid and philosophical De Tocqueville. But these historical reprints do not include all the privately printed books, among
which are even occasional reproductions of some very rare old
English book, and monographs upon important questions in literature. And this in a country where, according to the same grave
historian, "literature receives but little encouragement." For our
own sakes it would not be worth while to notice these matters.
We can afford to pass them by. But it is curious and instructive to observe with how much ignorance people can enable
themselves to write about us. -W.]




PART 1V.-BOOK-CLUB LITERA TURE.
EARLY a quarter of a century after
the birth of the first book club, a
new era was ushered in by its brother, the Camden, established for the
printing of books and documents connected with the early civil, ecclesiastical, and literary history of the British Empire.  It discarded
the rule which threw on each member the duty of
printing and distributing a book, and tried the more
equitable adjustment of an annual subscription to
create a fund for defraying the expense of printing
volumes to be distributed among the members.
These, at first limited to 1000, expanded to 1200.
Clubs with various objects now thickly followed.
Any attempt to classify them as a whole, is apt to
resemble Whately's illustration of illogical division
-" e. g., if you were to divide' book' into'poetical,
historical, folio, quarto, French, Latin,"' &c. One
of the systems of arrangement is topographical, as
the Chetham, "for the purpose of publishing biographical and historical books connected with the




GENERALITIES.                305
counties palatine of Lancaster and Chester." 1 The
Surtees, again, named after our friend the balladmonger, affects " those parts of England and Scotland included in the east between the Humber and
the Firth of Forth, and in the west between the
Mersey and the Clyde - a region which constituted
the ancient kingdom  of Northumberland."   The
Maitland, with its head-quarters in Glasgow, gives
a preference to the west of Scotland, but has not
been exclusive. The Spalding Club, established in
Aberdeen, the granite capital of the far north, is the
luminary of its own district, and has produced fully
as much valuable historical matter as any other club
in Britain.  Then there is the Irish Archaeological
- perhaps the most learned of all -with its casual
assistants, the Ossianic, the Celtic, and the Iona.
The 2lfric may be counted their ethnical rival, as
dealing with the productions of the Anglo-Saxon
enemies of the Celt. The Camden professes, as we
have seen, to be general to the British Empire.
The name of the club called " The Oriental Translation Fund " tells its own story.
There are others, too, with no topographical connection, which express pretty well their purpose in
their names -as the Shakespeare, for the old drama
— the Percy, for old ballads and lyrical pieces.
The Hakluyt has a delightful field — old voyages
1 Among other volumes of interest, the Chetham has issued a
very valuable and amusing collection of documents about the
siege of Preston, and other incidents of the insurrection of 1715
in Lancashire.
20




306        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
and travels.  The Rae Society sticks to zoology
and botany; and the Wernerian, the Cavendish,
and the Sydenham, take the other departments in
science, which the names given to them readily
indicate.
In divinity and ecclesiastical history we have the
Parker Society, named after the archbishop. Its
tendencies are "low," or, at all events, "broad;"
and as it counted some seven thousand members, it
could not be allowed the run of the public mind
without an antidote being accessible. Hence, " The
Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology," the tendency
of which was not only shown in its name, but in its
possessing among its earliest adherents the Rev. E.
B. Pusey and the Rev. John Keble. The same
party strengthened themselves by a series of volumes called the "Library of the Fathers of the
Holy Catholic Church anterior to the Division of
the East and West, translated by Members of the
English Church." In Scotland, the two branches
which deny the supremacy of Rome (it would give
offence to call them both Protestant) are well represented by the Spottiswoode, already referred to
as the organ of Episcopacy; and the more prolific
Wodrow, which, named after the zealous historian
of the Troubles, was devoted to the history of
Presbyterianism, and the works of the Presbyterian
fathers.
Thus are the book clubs eminently the republic
of letters, in which no party or class has an absolute
predominance, but each enjoys a fair hearing. And




GENERALITIES.             307
whereas if we saw people for other purposes than
literature combining together according to ecclesiastical divisions, as High Church or Low, Episcopalian or Presbyterian, we should probably find that
each excluded from its circle all that do not spiritually belong to it, we are assured it is quite otherwise in the book clubs —that High Churchmen or
Romanists have not been excluded from the Parker,.
or evangelical divines prohibited from investing in;
the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology. Nay, the
most zealous would incline to encourage the communication of their own peculiar literary treasures
to their avowed theological opponents, as being
likely to soften their hearts, and turn them towards
the truth.  Some adherents of these theological
clubs there also are of slightly latitudinarian propensities, to whom the aspirations of honest religious
zeal, and the records of endurance and martyrdom
for conscience' sake, can never be void of interest,
or fail in summoning up feelings of respectful sympathy, whatever be the denominational banner under which they have been exhibited. Some of these
clubs now rest from their labors, the literary strata
in which they were employed having been in fact
worked out.  Whether dead or living, however,
their books are now a considerable and varied intellectual garden, in which the literary busy bee
may gather honey all the day and many a day.
It will be readily supposed from the different and
utterly separate grooves in which they run, and is
very well known to the prowler among club books,




308       BOOK-CLUB LiTERATURE.
that although these volumes profess to be printed
from old manuscripts, or to be mere reprints of rare
books, they take a considerable portion of their tone
and tendency from the editor. In fact, the editor
of a club book is, in the general case, a sort of
literary sportsman, who professes to follow entirely
his own humor or caprice, or, say, his own taste and
enjoyment, in the matter which he selects, and the
manner in which he lays it before his friends.
Hence, many of these volumes, heavy and unimpressible as they look, yet are stamped strongly with
the marks of the individuality, or of the peculiar
intellectual cast, of living men. Take down, for
instance, the volume of the Camden called "De
Antiquis Legibus Liber, otherwise, Cronica Majorumn et Vicecomitum Londoniarum," printed from
" a small folio, nine inches and a half in length and
seven inches in breadth, the binding of white leather
covering wooden backs, and containing 159 leaves
of parchment, paged continuously with Arabic cyphers."  It is partly a record of the old municipal laws of the city of London, partly a chronicle
of events. Had it fallen to be edited by a philosophical inquirer into the origin and principles of
jurisprudence, or an investigator of the rise and
progress of cities, or a social philosopher of any
kind, it is hard to say what might have been made
of it - easy to say that it would have been made
something very different from what it is.  The
editor was an illustrious genealogist. Accordingly,
early in his career as expositor of the character of




GENERALITIES.              309
the volume, he alights upon a proper name, not
entirely isolated, but capable of being associated
with other names. Thus, he is placed on a groove,
and off he goes travelling in the fashion following
over 220 pages of printed quarto:  "Henry de
Cornhill, husband of Alice de Courcy, the heiress
of the Barony of Stoke Courcy Corn. Somerset, and
who, after his decease, re-married Warine FitzGerald the king's chamberlain, leaving by each an
only daughter, co-heirs of this Barony, of whom
Joan de Cornhill was the wife of Hugh de Neville,
Proto Forester of England, wife first of Baldwine
de Reviers, eldest son and heir-apparent of William
de Vernon, Earl of Devon, deceased in his father's
lifetime; and, secondly, of the well-known favourite
of King John, Fulk de Breaut6, who had name
from a commune of the Canton of Goderville, arrondissement of Le Havre, department of La Seine
Inf-rieure, rendered accompt of this his debt in the
same roll;" and so on over the remainder of the
220 pages. If you turn over a few of them you
will find the same sort of thing: " Agnes, the first
daughter, was married to William de Vesey, of
whom John de Vesey, issueless, and William  de
Vesey, who had issue, John de Vesey, who died
before his father; and afterwards the said William
de Vesey, the father, without heir of his body;"'
and so on.
The reader whose fortune it has been to pass a,
portion of his early days among venerable Scottishi
gentlewomen of the old school, will perhaps experi



310         BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
ence an uneasy consciousness of having encountered
matter of this description before. It may recall to
him misty recollections of communications which
followed a course something like this: " And so ye
see, auld Pittoddles, when his third wife deed, he
got married upon the laird o' Blaithershin's aughteenth  daughter, that was sister to Jemima, that
was married intil Tam  Flumexer, that was first and
second cousin to the Pittoddleses, whase brither
became laird afterwards, and married Blaithershin's
Baubie — and that way Jemima became in a kind o'
way her ain niece and her ain aunty, an' as we used
to say, her gude-brither was married to his ain
grannie."
But there is the deep and the shallow in genealogy, as in other arts and sciences, and, incoherent,
as it may sound to the uninitiated, the introduction
to the Liber de Antiquis Legibus is no old woman's work, but full of science and strange matter.1
It all grows, however, in genealogical trees, these
being the predominant intellectual growth in the
editor's mind. In fact, your thorough genealogist
1 I remember hearing of an instance at a jury trial in ScotJland, where counsel had an extremely subtle point of genealogy,to make out, and no one but a ploughman witness, totally desti-;tute of the genealogical faculty, to assist him to it. His plan -
and probably a very judicious one in the general case -was to
get the witness on a table-land of broad unmistakable principle,:and then by degrees lure him farther on. Thus he got the witness readily to admit that his own mother was older than himself, but no exertion or ingenuity could get his intellect a step:beyond that broad admission.




GENERALITIES.              311
is quite a peculiar intellectual phenomenon. He is
led-on by a special and irresistible internal influence
or genius. If he should for some time endeavor to
strive after a more cosmopolite intellectual vitality,
the ruling spirit conquers all other pursuits. The
organism of the tree resumes its predominance, and
if he have healthy sturdy brains, whatever other
matter they may have collected is betimes dragged
into the growth, and absorbed in the vitality of the
majestic bole and huge branches. There is perhaps
no pursuit more thoroughly absorbing. The reason
is this: No man having yet made out for himself
an articulate pedigree from Adam - Sir Thomas
Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, to be sure,
made one for himself, but he had his tongue in his
cheek all the while - no clear pedigree going back
to the first of men, every one, whether short or
long, Celtic or Saxon, comes into the clouds at last.
It is when a pedigree approaches extinction that the
occasion opens for the genealogist to exercise his
subtlety and skill, and his exertions become all the
more zealous and exciting that he knows he must
be baffled somewhere. The pursuit is described as
possessing something like the same absorbing influence which is exercised over certain minds by the
higher mathematics.  The devotees get to think
that all human knowledge centres in their peculiar
science and the cognate mysteries and exquisite scientific manipulations of heraldry, and they may be
heard talking with compassionate contempt of some
one so grossly ignorant as not to know a bar-dexter




312        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
from a bend-sinister, or who asks what is meant by a
cross potent quadrate party per pale.
These are generally great readers -reading is
absolutely necessary for their pursuit; but they
have a faculty of going over literary ground, picking up the proper names, and carrying them away,
unconscious of anything else, as pointers go over
stubble fields and raise the partridges, without taking any heed of the valuable examples of cryptogamic botany or palheozoic entomology they may
have trodden over. A certain writer on logic and
metaphysics was once as much astonished as gratified by an eminent genealogical antiquary's expression of interest in a discovery which his last book
contained.  The philosopher thought his views on
the quantification of the predicate or on bifurcate
analysis had at last been appreciated; but the discovery was merely this, that the name of a person
who, according to the previously imperfect science
of the genealogist, ought not to have existed then
and there, was referred to in a letter from Spinoza, cited in defence of certain views upon the absolute.
The votaries of this pursuit become powers in
the world of rank and birth, from the influence
they are able to bring upon questions of succession
and inheritance. Hence they are, like all great influences, courted and feared.  Their ministry is
often desired, sometimes necessary; but it is received with misgiving and awe, since, like the demons of old summoned by incantation, they may




GENERALITIES.               813
destroy the audacious mortal who demands their
services.  The most sagacious and sceptical men
are apt to be mildly susceptible to conviction in
the matter of their own pedigrees, and, a little conscious of their weakness, they shrink from letting
the sacred tree be handled by relentless and unsympathizing adepts. One of these intellectual tyrants,
a man of great ability, when he quarrelled with
any one, used to threaten to "bastardize " him, or
to find the bend-sinister somewhere in his ancestry;
and his experience in long genealogies made him
feel assured, in the general case, of finding what he
sought if he went far enough back for it.
The next volume you lay hand on is manifestly
edited by an Ecclesiologist, or a votary of that recent addition to the constituted "ologies," which
has come into existence as the joint offspring of
the revival of Gothic architecture and the study of
primitive-church theology.  Through this dim religious light he views all the things in heaven and
earth that are dealt with in his philosophy. His
notes are profusely decorated with a rich array of
rood screens, finial crockets, lavatories, aumbries,
lecterns, lych sheds, albs, stoups, sedilia, credence
tables, pixes, hagioscopes, baudekyns, and squenches.
It is evident that he keeps a bestiary, or record of
his experiences in bestiology, otherwise called bestial
eikonography; and if he be requested to give a
more explicit definition of the article, he will perhaps inform you that it is a record of the types of
the ecclesiological symbolization of beasts. If you




314        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
prevail on him to exhibit to you this solemn record,
which he will open with befitting reverence, the
faintest suspicion of a smile curling on your lip will
suffuse him with a lively sorrow for your lost condition, mixed with righteous indignation towards
the irreverent folly whereof you have been guilty.
He finds a great deal beyond sermons in stones,
and can point out to you a certain piece of rather
confused-looking architecture, which he terms a
symbolical epitome of all knowledge, human and
divine - an eikonographic encyclopaedia.
If you desire an antidote to all this, you may find
it in the editor in true blue who so largely refers
to the Book of the Universal Kirk, The Hynd Let
Loose, The Cloud of Witnesses, Naphtali, and Faithful Witness-Bearing Exemplified, and is great in
his observations on the Auchinshauch Testimony,
the Sanquhar Declaration, and that fine amalgamation of humility and dogmatism, the Informatory
Vindication.1
There is no occasion for quarrelling with these
specialties. They are typical of a zeal often prolific
both in amusement and instruction; and when a
man has gone through the labor of rendering many
hundreds of pages from a crabbed old manuscript,
or of translating as much from a nearly unknown
tongue, it would be hard to deny him the recreation
of a few capers on his own hobby. Keep in mind
1 " An Informatory Vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented remnant of the suffering anti-popisll, anti-prelatic, antierastian, anti-sectarian, only true church of Christ in Scotland."




GENERALITIES.               315
that everything of this kind is outside the substance
of the book. The editor has his swing in the introduction and appendix, and the notes; perhaps also
in the title and index, if he can make anything of
them.  But it is a principle of honor throughout
the clubs that the purity of the text shall not be
tampered with, and so, whether dark or light, faint
or strong, it is a true impression of the times, as
the reader will perhaps find in the few specimens
I propose to show him. As touching the literary
value of what is thus restored, there are some who
will say, and get applause for doing so, that there
are too many bad or second-rate books in the world
already; that every work of great genius finds its
way to the world at once; and that the very fact of
its long obscurity proves a piece of literature to be
of little value. For all this, and all that can be
added to it, there are those who love these recovered relics of ancestral literature, and are prepared
to give reasons for their attachment. In the first
place, and apart from their purely literary merits,
they are records of the intellect and manners of
their age. Whoever desires really to be acquainted
with the condition of a nation at any particular
time - say with that of England during Elizabeth's
reign, or the Commonwealth —will not attain his
object by merely reading the most approved histories of the period. He must endeavor as far as
he can to live back into the times, and to do this
most effectually he had better saturate himself to
the utmost with its fugitive literature, reading




31 6       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
every scrap he may lay hand on until he can find
no more.
Looking at these relics, on the other hand, as
pure literature, no doubt what is recalled out of
the past loses the freshness and the fitness to surrounding conditions which gave it pungency and
emphasis in its own day, while it has not that hold
on our sympathies and attachment possessed by
the household literature which generation after generation has been educated to admire, and which,
indeed, has made itself a part of our method of
thought, and our form of language. But precisely
because it wants this qualification has resuscitated
literature a peculiar value of its own. It breaks in
with a new light upon the intellect of the day, and
its conventional forms and colors. There is not in
the intellectual history of mankind any so effective
and brilliant an awakening as the resuscitation of
classical literature.  It was not one solitary star
arising after another at long intervals and far apart
in space, but a sudden blazing forth of a whole firmament of light.  But that is a phenomenon to all
appearance not to be repeated, or, more correctly
speaking, not to be completed, since it broke up
unfinished, leaving the world in partial darkness.
Literature has been ever since wailing the loss of
the seventy per cent. of Livy's History, of the eighty
per cent. of Tacitus and of Euripides, of the still
larger proportion of ZEschylus and Sophocles, of the
mysterious triumphs of Menander, and of the whole
apparatus of the literary renown of Varro and of




GENERALITIES.               317
Atticus. What would the learned world give for
the restoration of these things? It may safely offer
an indefinite reward, for so well has its surface been
ransacked for them that their existence is hardly
possible, though some sanguine people enjoy the
expectation of finding them in some obscure backshelves in the Sultan's library. The literary results of the costly and skilfill scientific process for
restoring the baked books found in Herculaneum
were so appallingly paltry, as to discourage the
pursuit of the lost classics.  The best thing brought
to light during the present century, indeed, is that
institute of Gains which cost Angelo MaY such a
world of trouble, and was the glory and boast of his
life; but it is not a very popular or extensively read
book after all. The manuscripts that have been extracted from the dirty greedy fingers of the Armenian and Abyssinian monks, are the most valuable
pieces of literature that have been rescued from the
far past.  Important light on the early history of
eastern Christianity will no doubt be extracted from
them; but they are written in those oriental tongues
which are available only to the privileged few.
Unlikely as the treasures opened by the revival of
classic literature are to be to any extent increased,
let us not despise the harvest of our own home
gleaners. They do not find now and then a buried
Hamlet, or Paradise Lost, or Hudibras - though,
by the way, the Poetical Remains of Butler, which
in wit and sarcasm are second only to his great
work, were rescued from oblivion by the drudging




318           BOOK-CLUB L1TERAl'URE.
antiquary Thier, who was so conceited of the performance that he had the portrait of his own respectable and  stupid  face engraved beside that of
Butler, in order perhaps that all men might see
how incapable he was of fabricating the pieces to
which it is prefixed.  There is a good deal of the
poetry of the club books of which it may at least be
said, that worse is printed and praised as the produce of our contemporaries.'
1 Take, for instance, the Hymns or Sacred Songs of Alexander
Hume, a poet of the end of the sixteenth century, resuscitated
by the Bannatyne. One of them called " The Day Estival, or
Thanks for a Summer Day," though rounded off with a few
established pastoralities, yet shows a keen observation of pleasing natural objects, and a ready capacity for describing them.
After a short peroration we have the morning twilight announced.
"The shadow of the earth anon
Removes and drawes by,
Then in the east, when it is gone,
Appears a clearer sky."
Then the sunrise"The golden globe incontinent
Sets up his shining head,
And o'er the earth and firmament
Displays his beams abraid.
"For joy the birds with bolden throats,
Against his visage sheen,
Take up their kindly music notes
In woods and gardens green.
"Up braids the careful husbandman,
His corns and vines to see,
And every timeous artisan
In booth works busily.




GENERALITIES.                        319
It is not so much, however, in Poetry or the
Drama as in Historical literature that the clubs
develop  their strength.   It is difficult to  estimate
the greatness of the obligations of British history
to these institutions.   They have dug up, cleansed,
and put in order for immediate inspection and use,
a multitude of written monuments bearing on the
greatest events and the most critical epochs in the
progress of the empire. The time thus saved to
"The pastor quits the slothful sleep,
And passes forth with speed,
His little camow-nosed sheep
And rowting kie to feed."
And so the day goes on until we have this pleasant picture of
a sultry noon:" The time so tranquil is and still,
That nowhere shall ye find,
Save on an high and barren hill,
The air of peeping wind.
" All trees and simples great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,
Nor they were painted on a wall,
No more they move or stir.
" Calm is the deep and purpure see,
Yea, smoother than the sand;
The wells that weltering wont to be
Are stable like the land.
" So silent is the cessile air,
That every cry and call
The hills and dails and forest fair
Again repeat them all.
"The rivers fresh, the caller streams,
Doun rocks can softly rin,
The water clear like crystel seems,
And makes a pleasant din."




320           BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
investigators is great and  priceless.   In  no  other
department of knowledge  can  the  intellectual laborer more forcibly apply the Latin proverb which
warns him that his work is indefinite but his life
brief.   In  the  ordinary  sciences  the  philosopher
may and often does content himself with the wellrounded and professedly completed system of the
Then follow a variety of sketches of still and active life, appropriate to the several periods of the day's progress; and at last
evening brings its own peculiar beauties:" The gloaming comes, the day is spent,
The sun goes out of sight,
And painted is the Occident
With purpour sanguine bright.
" The scarlet nor the golden thread,
Who would their beauties try,
Are nothing like the colour red
And beauty of the sky.
"Our west horizon circular,
Fra time the sun be set,
Is all with rubies, as it were,
Or roses red o'erset.
"What pleasure were to walk and see,
Endlong a river clear,
The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear!
" The salmon out of cruives and creels,
Uphalled into skoutts,
The bells and circles on the wells
Through louping of the trouts.
"0  then it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing,
With cornet and with pscham."




GENERALITIElS.              321
day. But no one can grapple with history without
feeling its inexhaustibleness.  Its final boundaries
seem only to retreat to a farther distance the more
ground we master, as Mr. Buckle found, when he
betook himself, like another Atlas, to grapple with
the history of the whole world.
The more an investigator finds his materials
printed for him, the farther he can go. No doubt
it is sometimes desirable, even necessary, to look to
some manuscript authority for the clearing-up of a
special point; but too often the profession of having
perused a great mass of manuscript authorities is an
affectation and a pedantry.  He who searches for
and finds the truth in any considerable portion of
history, performs too great an achievement to care
for the praise of deciphering a few specimens of difficult handwriting, and revealing the sense hidden
in certain words couched in obsolete spelling.  If
casual discoveries of this kind do really help him to
great truths, it is well; but it too often happens
that he exaggerates their value, because they are
his own game, shot on his own manor.  Until he
has exhausted all that is in print, the student of history wastes his time in struggling with manuscripts.
Hence the value of the services of the book clubs in
immensely widening the arena of his immediate materials. To him their volumes are as new tools to
the mechanic, or new machinery to the manufacturer.  They economize, as it is termed, his labor;
more correctly speaking, they increase its productiveness.
21




322       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
These books are fortunately rich in memorials of
the great internal contest of the seventeenth century.
Take, for instance, the notes of the proceedings of
the Long Parliament, by Sir Ralph Verney, edited
for the Camden by Mr. Bruce.  They come upon
us fresh from that scene of high debate, carrying
with them the very marks of strife.  The editor
informs us that the manuscript is written almost
entirely in pencil on slips of foolscap paper, which
seem to have been so folded as to be conveniently
placed on the knee, and transferred to the pocket
as each was completed.  " They are," he says,
"' full of abrupt terminations, as if the writer occasionally gave up the task of following a rapid
speaker who had got beyond him, and began his
note afresh. When they relate to resolutions of
the House, they often contain erasures, alterations,
or other marks of the haste with which the notes
were jotted down, and of the changes which took
place in the subject-matter during the progress towards completion. On several important occasions,
and especially in the instance of the debate on the
Protestation [as to the impeachment of Strafford],
the confusion and irregularity of the notes give evidence to the excitement of the House; and when
the public discord rose higher, the notes become
more brief and less personal, and speeches are less
frequently assigned to their speakers, either from
greater difficulty in reporting, or from an increased
feeling of the danger of the time, and the possible
use that might be made of notes of violent remarks.




JOHN SPALDING.              323
On several of the sheets there are marks evidently
made by the writer's pencil having been forced upwards suddenly, as if by some one, in a full House,
pressing hastily against his elbow while he was in,
the act of taking his note."
OOKING from the opposite end of the
island, and from a totally different sociali
- position, another watchful observer re-: corded the events of the great contest.
This was John Spalding, commonly supposed to,,
have been Commissary-Clerk of Aberdeen, but pos-.
itively known in no other capacity than as author
of the book aptly entitled The Troubles, or, morefully, 4" Memorials of the Troubles in Scotland and
in England," from 1624 to 1645. Little, probably,.
did the Commissary-Clerk imagine, when he enteredi
on his snug quiet office, where he recorded probates
of wills and the proceedings in questions of marriage law, that he was to witness and record one of
the most momentous conflicts that the world ever
beheld - that contest which has been the prototype
of all later European convulsions. Less still could,
he have imagined that fame would arise for him;
after two hundred years —that vehement though
vain efforts should be made to endow the simpleo
name of John Spalding with the antecedents and,




324        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
subsequents of a biographical existence, and that
the far-off descendants of many of those lairds and
barons, whose warlike deeds he noticed at humble
distance, should raise a monument to his memory
in an'institution called by his name. He was evidently a thoroughly retiring man, for he has left no
vestige whatever of his individuality-. Some specimens of his formal official work might have been
found in the archives of his office -these would
have been especially valuable for the identification
of his handwriting and the settlement of disputed
questions about the originality of manuscripts; but
these documents, as it happens, were all burnt early
in last century with the building containing them.
So ardent and hot has been the chase after vestiges
of this man, that the fact was once discovered that
with his own hand he had written a certain deed
concerning a feu-duty or rent-charge of ~25 7s. 4d.,
bearing date 31st January, 1663; but in spite of
the most resolute efforts, this interesting document
has not been found.
It is probably to this same unobtrusive reserve,
which has shrouded his very identity, that we owe
the valuable peculiarities of the Commissary-Clerk's
chronicle.  He sought no public distinctions, took
no ostensible side, and must have kept his own
thoughts to himself, otherwise he would have had
to bear record of his own share of troubles.  In
this calm serenity, folding the arms of resignation
on the bosom of patience as the Persians say, he
took his notes of the wild contest that raged around




JOHN SPALDING.              325
him, setting down each event, great or small, with
systematic deliberation, as if he were an experimental philosopher watching the phenomena of an
eclipse or an eruption.  Hence nowhere, perhaps,
has it been permitted to a mere reader to have so
good a peep behind the scenes of the mighty drama
of war.  We have plenty of chroniclers of that
epoch — marching us with swinging historic stride
on from battle unto battle - great in describing in
long sentences the musterings, the conflicts, and the
retreats. In Spalding, however, we shall find the
numbers and character of the combatants, their
arms, their dresses, the persons who paid for these,
and the prices paid - the amount they obtained in
pay, and the amount they were cheated out of -
their banners, distinguishing badges, watchwords,
and all other like particulars, set down with the
minuteness of a bailiff making an inventory of
goods on which he has taken execution.  He is
very specific in what one may term the negative
side of the characteristics of war - the misery and
desolation it spreads around.  The losses of this
" gudeman " and that lone widow are stated as if
he were their law agent, making up an account to
go to a jury for damages for the " spulzie of outside
and inside plenishing, nolt, horse, sheep, cocks and
hens, hay, corn, peats, and fodder."  He specifies
all the items of mansions and farm-houses attacked,
and looted, or "6 harried," as he calls it - the doors,
staved in, the wainscoting pulled down - the win-.
dows smashed - the furniture made firewood of --




326        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
the pleasant plantations cut down to build sleepinghuts - the linen, plate, and other valuables carried
off: he will even, perchance, tell how they were
distributed -who it was that managed to feather
his nest with the plunder, and who it was that was
disappointed and cheated.
He had opportunities of bestowing his descriptive
powers to good purpose. Besides its ordinary share
in the vicissitudes and calamities of the war, his
town of Aberdeen was twice pillaged by Montrose,
with laudable impartiality — once for the Covenanters and once for the Royalists. Here is his first triumphant entry:" Upon the morne, being Saturday, they came in
order of battle, being well armed both on horse and
foot, ilk horseman having five shot at the least,
whereof he had ane carbine in his hand, two pistols
by his sides, and other two at his saddle-torr; the
pikemen in their ranks with pike and sword; the
musketeers in their ranks with musket, musketstaff, bandelier, sword, powder, ball, and match.
Ilk company, both horse and foot, had their captains, lieutenants, ensigns, sergeants, and other officers and commanders, all for the most part in buff
coats and goodly order. They had five colors or,ensigns, whereof the Earl of Montrose had one hav-,ing his motto drawn in letters,' For Religion, the
Covenant, and the Countrie.' The Earl Marechal
had one, the Earl of Kinghorn had one, and the
town of Dundee had two. They had trumpeters
to ilk company of horsemen, and drummers to ilk




JOHN SPALDING.              327
company of footmen. They had their meat, drink,
and other provisions, bag and baggage, carried with
them, done all by advice of his Excellency FieldMarshal Leslie, whose counsel General Montrose
followed in this business. Then, in seemly order
and good array, this army came forward and entered the burgh of Aberdeen, about ten hours in
the morning, at the Over Kirk gateport, syne came
down through the Broadgate, through the Castlegate, over at the Justice Port to the Queen's Links
directly. Here it is to be noted that few or none
of this haill army wanted ane blue ribbon hung
about his craig [viz., neck] under his left arm,
whilk they called'the Covenanters' ribbon,' because the Lord Gordon and some other of the
Marquis's bairns had ane ribbon, when he was
dwelling in the toun, of ane red flesh color, which
they wore in their hats, and called it'the royal
ribbon,' as a sign of their love and loyalty to the
King. In dispite or dirision whereof this blue ribbon was worn and called' the Covenanters' ribbon'
by the haill soldiers of this army."
The well-ordered army passed through, levying
a fine on the Malignants, and all seemed well; but
because the citizens had not resisted Montrose, the
loyal barons in the neighborhood fell on them  and
plundered them; and because they had submitted
to be so plundered, the Covenanting army came
back and plundered them  also.  "Many of this
company went and brack up the Bishop's yetts, set
on good fires of his peats standing within the close:




328       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
they masterfully broke up the haill doors and windows of this stately house; they brake down beds,
boards, aumries, glassen windows, took out the iron
stauncheons, brake in the locks, and such as they
could carry had with them, and sold for little or
nothing; but they got none of the Bishop's plenishing to speak of, because it was all conveyed away.
before their coming."  On Sunday, Montrose and
the other leaders duly attended the devotional services of the eminent Covenanting divines they had
brought with them.  "But," says Spalding, " the
renegate soldiers, in time of both preachings, is
abusing and plundering New Aberdeen pitifully,
without regard to God or man; " and he goes on
in his specific way, describing the plundering until
he reaches this climax: " No foul - cock or hen —
left unkilled.  The haill house-dogs, messens, and
whelps within Aberdeen felled and slain upon the
gate, so that neither hound nor messen or other dog
was left that they could see."  But there was a
special reason for this.  The ladies of Aberdeen,
on the retiring of Montrose's army, had decorated
all the vagabond street-dogs with the blue ribbon
of the Covenant.
This was in 1639.  Five years afterwards Montrose came back on them in more terrible guise
still, to punish the town for having yielded to the
Covenant. In Aberdeen, Cavalier principles generally predominatedl; but after being overrun and
plundered successively by either party, the Covenanters, having the acting government of the




JOHEN SPALDING.             329
country at-their back, succeeded in establishing a
predominance in the councils of the exhausted
community. Spalding had no respect for the civic
and rural forces they attempted to embody, and
speaks of a petty bailie'" who brought in ane drillmaster to learn our poor bodies to handle their
arms, who had more need to handle the plough and
win their livings."  Montrose had now with him
his celebrated army of Highlanders - or Irish, as
Spalding calls them - who broke at a rush through
the feeble force sent out of the town to meet them.
Montrose s" follows the chase to Aberdeen, his men
hewing and cutting down all manner of men they
could overtake within the town, upon the streets,
or in their houses, and round about the town, as
our men were fleeing, with broadswords, but mercy
or remeid.  These cruel Irish, seeing a man well
clad, would first tyr [i. e., strip] him and save the
clothes unspoiled, then kill the man;... nothing
heard but pitiful howling, crying, weeping, mourning, through all the streets..... It is lamentable to
hear how thir. Irishes, who had gotten the spoil of
the town, did abuse the samin. The men that they
killed they would not suffer to be buried, but tirled
them of their clothes, syne left their naked bodies
lying above the ground.  The wife durst not cry
nor weep at her husband's slaughter before her
eyes, nor the mother for her son - which if they
were heard, then they were presently slain also,... and none durst bury the dead. Yea, and I
saw two corpses carried to the burial through the




330          iBOOK-CL UB LITERATURE.
old town with women only, and not ane man
amongst them, so that the naked corpses lay unburied so long as these limmers were ungone to
the camp."
The Commissary-Clerk was on Montrose's side,
but he had the hatred of a Lowlander of that day
for the Highlanders. He has a great many amusing
episodes describing the light-handed lads from  the
hills coining down, and in the general confusion of
the times plundering Cavalier and Covenanter alike;
and on these occasions he drops his usual placidity
and becomes rabid and abusive, as the best-tempered
Americans are said to become when they speak of
niggers, and deals out to them  the terms-limmers,
thieves, robbers, cut-throats, masterful vagrants, and
so forth, with great volubility.l   Of some of their
1 [It would be more satisfactory if this statement were somewhat more specific; if we knew who were meant by "the
Americans," and by whom they are said to become " rabid and
abusive when they speak of niggers." If by the Americans
are meant the fire-eating slaveholders and the poor-white trash
which lives upon their refuse and does their dirty work, the
justice of the remark must be admitted. This sort of American
is rabid and abusive enough upon the subject of "niggers."
The London "Morning Herald" itself upon the subject of
"Yankees" can hardly surpass the richness and pungency of
his vocabulary; the style of every true Briton a few years ago
when he spoke of Frenchmen went little beyond it, even in profanity. But outside of the fellowship above named are about
twenty millions of people sometimes designated as Americans,
for want of a better name, among whom this book will find its
readers, and who will be surprised and doubtless gratified to
learn how very foul-mouthed they become when they speak of
a subject in which their concern is not at all of a personal, but
purely of a public and philanthropic nature. - W.]




ROBERT WODRO W.             331
chiefs, renowned in history, he speaks as mere
robber-leaders, and when they are known by one
name in their own country and another in the Lowlands, he puts an alias between the two. The very
initial words of his chronicle are, " Efter the death
and burial of Angus Macintosh of Auldterlie, alias
Angus Williamson."
Montrose having departed, Argyle's troops commenced to plunder the district for having submitted
to his enemy, and these, being doubly offensive as
Covenanters and Highlanders, are treated accordingly. But it is necessary to be impartial; and
having bestowed so much on the Cavalier annalist,
let us take a glimpse at the other side.
Robert 1lobram.
ROM  the collections of the Reverend,:~ Robert Wodrow, the historian of The
Sufferings of the Church of Scotland,
-: x  a rich harvest has been reaped by the
northern clubs, one of which appropriately adopted
his name. He was a voluminous writer and an inexhaustible collector. It is generally classed among
the failings of the book-hunter that he looks only to
the far past, and disregards the contemporary and
the recent. Wodrow was a valuable exception to
this propensity. Reversing the spirit of the selfish
bull which asks what posterity has done for us, he




332        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
stored up contemporary literature for subsequent
generations; and he thus left, at the commencement
of the eighteenth century, such a library as a collector of the nineteenth, could he have sent a caterer
before him, would have prepared to await his arrival
in the world. The inestimable value of the great
collection of the civil-war pamphlets made by George
Thomason, and fortunately preserved in the British
Museum, is very well known.  Just such another
of its kind is Wodrow's, made up of the pamphlets,
broadsides, pasquinades, and other fugitive pieces of
his own day, and of the generation immediately
preceding. These are things easily obtained in their
freshness, but the term fugitive is too expressive of
their nature, and after a generation or two they have
all flown away, save those which the book-hunter
has exorcised into the vaults of some public collection. There is perhaps too little done in our own
day in preserving for posterity these mute witnesses
of our sayings and doings.  They are too light and
volatile to be caught by the Copyright Act, which
so carefully deposits our quartos and octavos in the
privileged libraries. It is pleasant, by the way, at
this moment, to observe that the eminent scholar
who has charge of the chief portion of Wodrow's
gatherings, as keeper of the Advocates' Library, is
following his example, by preserving a collection of
the pamphlets of the present century which will
keep our posterity in employment, if they desire to
unwind the intricacies of all our civil and ecclesiastical sayings and doings.




ROBERT WODRO W.              333
Wodrow  carried on an active correspondence
about matters of contemporary policy, and the special inquiries connected with his History: selections
from this mass have furnished three sturdy volumes.
Besides pamphlets, he scraped together quantities of
other people's manuscripts - some of them rising
high enough in importance to be counted State
papers. How the minister of the quiet rural parish
of Eastwood could have got his hands on them is a
marvel, but it is fortunate that they were saved from
destruction; and it is nearly equally fortunate that
they have been well ransacked by zealous club-book
makers, who have by this time probably exhausted
the better part of their material. In the next place,
Wodrow left behind several biographies of eminent
members of his own Church, its saints and martyrs;
and goodly masses out of this storehouse have also
been printed.
But by far the most luxurious morsel in the
worthy man's intellectual larder was not intended
to reach the profane vulgar, but destined for his
own special rumination. It consists in the veritable
contents of his private note-books, containing his
communings with his own heart and his imagination. They were written on small slips of paper, in
a hand direly cramped and minute; and lest this
should not be a sufficient protection to their privacy,
a portion was committed to certain ciphers, which
their ingenious inventor deemned, no doubt, to be
utterly impregnable. In stenography, however, the
art of lock-picking always keeps ahead of the art of




334        BOOK-CL UB LITERATURE.
locking, as that of inventing destructive missiles
seems to outstrip that of forging impenetrable plates.
Wodrow's trick was the same as that of Samuel
Pepys, and productive of the same consequencesthe excitement of a rabid curiosity, which at last
found its way into the recesses of his secret communings.  They are now printed, in the fine type
of the Maitland Club, in four portly quartos, under
the title, Wodrow's Analecta. Few books would
hold out so much temptation to a commentator, but
their editor is dumb, faithfully reprinting the whole,
page by page, and abstaining both from introduction and explanatory foot-note.
Perhaps in the circumstances this was a prudent
measure. Those who enjoy the weaknesses of the
enthusiastic historian have them at full length. As
to others partially like-minded with him, but more
worldly, who would rather that such a tissue of
absurdities had not been revealed, they are bound
over to silence, seeing that a word said against the
book is a word of reproach against its idolized author
-for as to the editor, he may repeat after Macbeth,
" Thou canst not say I did it."
Mr. Buckle's ravenous researches into the most
distant recesses of literature revealed to him this
pose. He has taken some curious specimens out
of it, but he might have made his anthology still
richer had he been in search of the picturesque and
ludicrous, instead of seeking solid support for his
great theory of positivism. What he chiefly amuses
one with in this part of the world, however, is the




ROBERT WODROW.              335
solemn manner in which he treats the responsibility
of giving increased publicity to such things, and
invokes the Deity to witness that his objects are
sincere, and he is influenced by no irreverence.
This feeling may arise from a very creditable source,
but a native of Scotland has difficulty in understanding it. In this country, being, as many of us
have been, within the very skirts of the great contests that have shaken the realm - Jacobitism on
the one hand and Covenantism on the other - we
are roughened and hardened, and what shocks our
sensitive neighbors is very good fun to ourselves.
It appears that Wodrow had intended to publish
a book on remarkable special providences —something of a scientific character it was to be, containing a classification of their phenomena, perhaps a
theory of their connection with revealed religion.
The natural laws by which they are ruled, he could
not, of course, have sought to discover, since the
principle on which he set out predicated the nonexistence of such laws. The advantage of the peep
enjoyed into his private note-book is, that we have
his incornmpleted inquiries containing the stories as
to which even he - a very poor adept at scepticism
-required some confirmation. It is quite evident
that we thus have something more valuable to philosophy, and infinitely more amusing, than his completed labors would have been. Here, for instance,
is one of his break-downs - an interesting phenomenon, but not irrefragably proved: —
" This day I have an accompt from Marion Ste



336       BBOOK-CL UB LITERATURE.
venson, who says she had it from one who was witness to it, that near Dunglass there was a child
found upon the highway by some shearers, to their
uptaking lately born; and they brought it to the
next house, where the woman putting on the pan
to make some meat for it, the pan filled full of corn;
and when she turned it out and put it on the second
time, it filled full of bear; and when put on the
third time, it filled full of blood; and upon this the
child began to alter its shapes some way, and to
speak, and told them this year should have great
plenty, and the next year also, but the third the
land should be filled with blood and fire and sword!
and the child desired it might be taken to the place
where it was found, and left there.  I hear not yet
what was done with it.  This is so incredible, that
I set it down only for after trial and inquiry about
it - no confirmation."
His wife tells him a story which in her youth she
had heard narrated by Mr. Andrew Reid, minister
of Kirkbean.  It is a case of true love crossed by
the interference of cruel relations. The swain leaves
the country for several years — gets on — remembers the old love, and returns to fulfil his vows. It
happens that on the day of his return the loved one
dies. He is on his way to her house in the dusk of
eve when he meets an old man, who tells him that
he is going on a bootless errand -he will find a
dead corpse for the warm living heart he expected.
The stranger, however, pitying his distress, tells
him there is a remedy - hands to the lover certain




ROBERT WODROW.              337
pills, and says, "If you will give her these, she will
recover." So it turned out, and they were happily
married. A certain visitor at the house, however,' a very eminent Christian," refused to salute the
lady with the usual courtesies. He takes the husband aside, " and tells him that he was very much
persuaded his wife was a devil, and indeed he could
not salute her; and after some discourse prevailed
so far with himnt as to follow his advice, which was
to go with her and take her to that room where he
found her, and lay her down upon the bed where
he found her, and quit her of a devil. Which he
did, and immediately she became a dead corpse half
consumed." " This had need," says cautious Wodrow, "to be weel attested, and I have writ to Mr.
Reid anent it." Curiosity urged me to look for and
find among Wodrow's manuscripts Mr. Reid's answer. He says he often heard the story from his
father as a truth, but had been unaccountably negligent in noting the particulars of it; and then he
favors his correspondent with some special providences anent himself, which appear not to have been
sufficiently pungent for Wodrow's taste.
A  philosophical investigator of the established
national superstitions would find excellent types of
all of them in the Analecta. In the department
of second-sight, for instance, restricted, with due observance to geographical propriety, within the Highland line, a guest disturbs a convivial meeting at
Blair-Athol by exclaiming that he beholds a dirk
22




338        BOOIC-CLUB LITERATURE.
sticking in the breast of their entertainer.  That
night he is stabbed to the heart; and even while
the seer beheld the visionary dagger, a bare-legged
gilly was watching outside to execute a long-cherished Highland vengeance.' The Marquess of Ar-.gyle, who was afterwards beheaded, was playing
with some of his clan at bowls, or bullets, as Wodrow calls them, for he was not learned in the nomenclature of vain recreations. " One of the players, when the Marquess stooped down to lift the
bullet, fell pale, and said to them about him,' Bless
me! what is that I see?- my Lord with the head
off, and all his shoulders full of blood.' "
In the department of fairy tricks, the infant of
Thomas Paton, " a very eminent Christian," in its
first use of speech, rattles out a volley of terrific
oaths, then eats two cheeses, and attempts to cut,its brother's throat.  This was surely sufficient'evidence to satisfy the most sceptical that it was a'changeling, even had it not, as the result of certain
well-applied prayers, "left the house with an extraordinary howling and crying."
Ghost and witch stories abound. The following
is selected on account of the eminence of its hero,
Gilbert Rule, the founder and first Principal of the
University of Edinburgh: He was travelling on
the dreary road across the Grampians, called the
-Cairn o' Mont, on which stood a lone desolate inn.
fIt has now disappeared, but I remember it in its
dreary old age, standing alone on the moor, with
its grim gables and its loupin'-on stane, -just the




ROBERT WODROW.              339
sort of place where, in the romances, the horrified
traveller used to observe a trap-door in his bedroom floor, and at supper picked the finger of a
murdered man out of a mutton pie. There Rule
arrived late at night seeking accommodation, but
he could get none —the house was crammed.  The
only alternative was to make a bed for him  in
an empty house close by; it had been unoccupied
for thirty years, and had a bad repute. He had
to sleep there alone, for his servant would not go
with him. Let Wodrow himself tell what came
to pass.
"He walked some time in the room, and committed himself to God's protection, and went to bed.
There were two candles left on the table, and these
he put out. There was a large bright fire remaining. He had not been long in bed till the roomn
door is opened, and an apparition, in shape of a
country tradesman, came in and opened the curtains without speaking a word. Mr. Rule was resolved to do nothing till it should speak or attack
him, but lay still with full composure, committing
himself to the Divine protection and conduct. The
apparition went to the table, lighted the two candles, brought them to the bedside, and made some
steps towards the door, looking still to the bed, as if
he would have Mr. Rule rising and following. Mr.
Rule still lay still, till he should see his way further
cleared. Then the apparition, who the whole time
spoke none, took an effectual way to raise the doctor.  He carried back the candles to the table, and




340          BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
went to the fire, and with the tongues1 took down
the kindled coals, and laid them  on the deal chamber floor.  The doctor then thought it time to rise
and put on his clothes, in the time of which the
spectre laid up the coals again in the chimney, and
going to the table, lifted the candles and went to
the door, opened it, still looking to the Principal as
he would have him following the candles, which he
now, thinking there was something extraordinary
in the case, after looking to God for direction, inclined  to  do.   The  apparition went down some
1 [This will seem to most readers a typographical error; to
some, merely an obsolete spelling. It is neither: it represents a
common provincial pronunciation, which is heard even among
the best-born and best-bred people in England. I remember a
case in point which is amusing and significant. A friend of
mine, whose manners and speech are those of cultivated people
in this country, during a passage along the Mediterranean eastward, some years ago, was thrown much in company with a
party consisting of a middle-aged Englishman of high official
position, his young wife of noble family, and a young man of
like social standing; all on their way to India. The lady was
bright and lively, and of unexceptionable manners, though somewhat too much given to good-humored sarcasm. Finding my
friend, to her surprise, though a " Yankee," yet not a salvage
man in a full black dress-suit with satin waistcoat and cravat,
(which we all know is the usual style of dress here in the morning and on a journey,) she graciously accepted his fellow-traveller attentions, and soon, with frank good-nature, he was tacitly
installed of their party.  But her young countryman was of
course her favorite and her firm ally. Especially was this the
case in a series of good-humored but often pungent attacks upon
Yankees, combined with traps and contrivances to catch this
particular one in offences against English speech and breeding.
That these were all in vain did not of course diminish the
watchfulness of the fair censor. Now it so happened that the




ROBERT WODRO W.                   341
steps with the candles, and carried them into a
long trance, at the end of which there was a stair
which carried down to a low room. This the spectre went down, and stooped, and set down the lights
on the lowest step of the stair, and straight disappears. "
The learned Principal, whose courage and coolness deserve the highest commendation, lighted himself back to bed with the candles, and took tile remainder of his rest undisturbed.  Being a man of
great sagacity, on ruminating over his adventure,
young gentleman who was going among the Sepoys to exchange
his liver for a fortune, although of a high county family, and
Eton and Oxford bred, was still infected, as many such men are,
with some provincial taint upon his purity of speech, - quite
unknown to himself. At breakfast one morning, no other persons being by, he asked my friend for the "sugar tongues."
They were placed at his hand, with the mild query, " Do you
say tongues l"  "Tongues? To be sure. Why not? everybody says tongues."  "In America we say tongs."  There was
a dispute, a bet; and the decision was left to Lady -, whose
English both parties admitted to be irreproachable. They tossed
up for the question. It fell to my friend. The two approached
her together, and he, who even in small matters is the soul of
honor and punctilio, holding up the forceps, said, "Lady-,
don't you call these things tongues? " Her eyes flashed merry
malice, and laughing, she cried out, " Ah, now I have you. Do
you Yankees call'em tongues? Tawings, man, (broadening it
out) tawngs is English."  The chapfkllen visage of her own true
knight showed her instantly the pit into which she had flung herself. But she was sensible and really good-natured. Her eyes
were opened. Gibing at Yankeeism was stopped; and for the
rest of their companionship mny friend was treated just as if he
had not had the misfortune to be born on this side of the water,
- a course which oddly enough proved to be the most convenient and agreeable that could have been devised for all parties. - W.]




342       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
he informed the sheriff of the county " that he was
much of the mind there was murder in the case."
The stone whereon the candles were placed was
raised, and there "the plain remains of a human
body were found, and bones, to the conviction of
all."  It was supposed to be an old affair, however, and no traces could be got of the murderer.
Rule undertook the functions of the detective, and
pressed into the service the influence of his own
profession.  He preached a great sermon on the
occasion, to which all the neighboring people were
summoned; and behold, "in the time of his sermon,
an old man near eighty years was awakened, and
fell a-weeping, and before all the whole company
acknowledged that, at the building of that house,
he was the murderer."
In Wodrow's note-book the devil often cuts a
humiliating figure, and is treated with a deal of
rude and boisterous jeering. A certain "exercised
Christian," probably during a fit of indigestion,
was subjected to a heavy wrestling with doubts
and irreconcilable difficulties, which raised in his
mind horrible suggestions. The devil took occasion
to put in a word or two for the purpose of increasing the confusion, but it had the directly opposite
effect, and called forth the remark that, "on the
whole, the devil is a great fool, and outshoots himself oft when he thinks he has poor believers on
the haunch." On another occasion the devil performed a function of a very unusual kind, one would
think. He is known to quote Scripture for his pur



ROBERT WODROW.              343
poses, but who ever before heard of his writing a
sermon- and, as it seems, a sound and orthodox
one? There was, it appears, a youth in the University of St. Andrews, preparing to undergo his
trials as a licentiate, who had good reason to fear
that he would be plucked.  Hle found he could
make nothing whatever of the trial sermon, and
was wandering about by lonely ways, seeking in
vain for inspiration. At last, " there came up to
him a stranger, in habit like a minister, in black
coat and band, and who addressed the youth very
courteously." He was mighty inquisitive, and at
length wormed out the secret grief.'c I have got
a text from the Presbytery. I cannot for my life
compose a discourse on it, so I shall be affronted."
The stranger replied - c Sir, I am a minister; let.me hear the text?"  He told him. " Oh, then, I
have an excellent sermon on that text in my pocket,
which you may peruse and commit to your memory. I engage, after you have delivered it before
the Presbytery, you will be greatly approven and
applauded."  The youth received it thankfully;
but one good turn deserves another. The stranger
had an eccentric fancy that he should have a written promise from the youth to do him afterwards
any favor in his power; and there being no other
liquid conveniently at hand for the signature of the
document, a drop of the young man's blood was.
drawn for the purpose. Note now what followed..
" Upon the Presbytery day the youth deliveredi
an excellent sermon upon the text appointed him,




344       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
which pleased and amazed the Presbytery to a
degree; only Mr. Blair smelt out something in it
which made him call the youth aside to the corner of the church, and thus he began with him:' Sir, you have delivered a nate sermon, every way
well pointed. The matter was profound, or rather
sublime; your style was fine and your method
clear; and, no doubt, young men at the beginning
must make use of helps, which I doubt not you
have done.' So beginning, Blair, who was a man
of mighty gifts and repute, pressed on so close with
repeated questions that the awful truth at last came
out. There was nothing for it but that the Presbytery must engage in special exercise for the penitent youth. They prayed each in succession to no
purpose, till it came to Blair's turn. "' In time of
his prayer there came a violent rushing of wind upon
the church - so great that they thought the church
should have fallen down about their ears - and
with that the youth's paper and covenant drops
down from the roof of the church among the ministers."
A large proportion of Wodrow's special providences are performed for the benefit of the clergy,
either to provide them with certain worldly necessaries of which they may happen to be in want, or
to give effect to their pious indignation, or, as some
might be tempted to call it, their vindictive spite,
against those who revile them. Perhaps an interdicted pastor, wandering over the desolate moors
where he and his hunted flock seek refuge, is sorely




ROBERT WODROW.              345
impeded by some small want of the flesh, and gives
expression to his wishes concerning it; when forthwith he is miraculously supplied with a shoulder of
mutton or a pair of trousers, according to the nature
of his necessities. He encounters ridicule or personal insult, and instantly the blasphemer is struck
dead, or idiotic, or dumb, after the example of those
who mocked Elisha's bald head; and Wodrow generally winds up these judgments with an appropriate
admonitory text, as, for instance, " Touch not His
anointed, and do His prophets no harm." As the
persons for whom these special miracles are performed generally happen to be sorely beset by
worldly privations and dangers, which are at their
climax at the very time when they are able to call
in supernatural intervention, a logician might be
inclined to ask why, if the operations, and, as it
were, the very motives, of the Deity are examined
in respect of those events which are propitious to
His favorite, they should not also be examined with
the same critical pertinacity as to the greatly predominating collection of events which are decidedly
unpropitious to him, so as to bring out the reason
why the simpler course of saving him from all hardships and persecution had not been followed, instead
of the circuitous plan of launching heavy calamities
against him, and then issuing special miraculous
powers to save him from a small portion of these
calamities. But such logic would probably be unprofitably bestowed, and it is wiser to take the narratives as they stand and make the best use of them.




346        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
Whoever looks at them with a cold scientific eve
will at once be struck by the close analogy of Wodrow's vaticinations and miracles to those of other
times and places, and especially to those credited to
the saints of the early Catholic Church, to which
many of them, indeed, bear a wonderfully exact
resemblance.
Ule far[~ Xortl)crn Zainto.
ARRIED  on by the power of association, we are thus brought to the door of
an exceedingly interesting department
of book-club literature, — the restoration of the true text of the early lives of the saints
-a species of literature now recognized and separated from others by the title of Hagiology. Everybody knows, or ought to know, that the great library of this kind of literature, published by the Bollandists, begins with the beginning of the year, and
gives the life of each saint successively according to
his day in the calendar. Ignorance is more excusable
on the question what constitutes saintship, and, supposing you to have found your saint, on the criterion
by which the day of his festival should be adjusted
in the calendar. Technically, to make a saint, there
should be an act of pontifical jurisdiction, all the
more solemn than any secular judicial act as the
interests affected are more momentous; but only a




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    347
small number of the saints stand on record in the
proceedings of the Vatican. In fact, the great body
of them were in the enjoyment of their honors hundreds of years before the certifying process was
adopted, and to investigate all their credentials was
far too weighty a task to be attempted. It is taken
for granted that they have been canonized, and if it
be difficult to prove that they have gone through
this ceremony, they hold their ground through the
still greater difficulty of proving that they have not.
Some of those whose sanctity is established by this
kind of acclamation are so illustrious that it would
be ludicrous to suppose even the Vatican capable of
adding to their eminence-more so, to imagine any
process by which they could be unsanctified- such
are St. Patrick, St. George, and St. David. But
there is a vast crowd of village or parochial saints
firmly established within their own narrow circles,
but as unknown at the court of Rome as any obscure curate working in some distant valley, or
among the poor of some great city. In such a
crowd there will naturally be questionable personages. St. Valentine, St. Fiacre, St. Boniface, St.
Lupus, St. Maccesso, St. Bobbio, and St. Jingo,
have names not endowed with a very sanctimonious
sound, but they are well-established respectable
saints. Even Alban Butler, however, has hard
work in giving credit to St. Longinus, St. Quirinus,
St. Mercurius, St. Hermes, St. Virgil, St. Plutarch,
and St. Bacchus. It is the occurrence of such
names that makles Moreri speak of the Bollandist




348        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
selection as rather loose, since it contains "' vies des
saintes bonnes, mediocres, mauvaises, vrayes, douteuses, et fausses."
The saint's festival-day is generally the anniversary of his death, or "deposition," as it is technically termed; but this is by no means an absolute
rule. Few compilers deserve more sympathy than
those who try to adjust saints' days by rule and
chronology, since not only does one saint differ from
another in the way in which his feast is established,
but for the same saint there are different days in
different countries, and even in different ecclesiastical districts — the diocese of Paris having, for
instance, some special saints' days of its own, which
differ from the practice throughout the rest of Catholic Christendom.  Some saints, too, have been
shifted about from day to day by authority. Queen
Margaret of Scotland, the wife of Malcolm, whose
real source of influence was that she represented
the old Saxon line of England, had two great days,
— that of her deposition on July the 8th, and that
of her translation on July the 19th; but, by a papal
ordinance immediately after the Revolution, her festival was established upon the 10th of June.  This
was rather a remarkable day in Britain, being that
on which the poor infant son of the last of the
Jameses, afterwards known in Parliamentary language as the Pretender, was born. The adjustment
of Queen Margaret's day to that event was a stroke
of policy for the purpose of rendering the poor child
respectable, and removing all doubts about warm



THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   349
ing-pans and other disagreeables; but it is not
known that the measure exercised the slightest
influence on the British Parliament.
Bollandus, who was the first seriously to lay his
hand to the great work called after him, was a Belgian Jesuit. He had got through January and February in five folio volumes, when he died in 1658.
Under the auspices of his successor, Daniel Papebroch, March appeared in 1668 and April in 1675,
each in three volumes. So the great work crept
on day by day and year by year, absorbing the
whole lives of many devoted laborers, conspicuous
among whom are the unmelodious names of Peter
Bosch, John Stilting, Constantine Suyskhen, Urban
Sticken, Cornelius Bye, James Bue, and Ignacius
Hubens. In 1762, a hundred and four years after
January, September was completed. It filled eight
volumes, for the work accumulated like a snowball
as it rolled, each month being larger than its predecessor. Here the ordinary copies stop in forty-seven
volumes, for the evil days of the Jesuits were coming on, and the new literary oligarchy, where Voltaire, Montesquieu, and D'Alembert held sway, had
not been propitious to hagiology. A part of October was accomplished under the auspices of Maria
Theresa, the Empress Queen, but for some reason
or other it came within the category of rare books,
and was not to be easily obtained until it was lately
reprinted.
Whatever effect such a phenomenon may have
on some denominations of the religious world, it can




350       BOO0K-CLUB LITERATURE.
afford nothing but pure satisfaction to all historical
investigators to know that this great work has been
resumed in this middle of the nineteenth century.
I have before me the ninth volume for October,
embracing the twentieth and twenty-first days of
that month, and containing about as much matter
as the five volumes of Macaulay's History. 011 the
21st of October there is, to be sure, a very heavy
job to be got through in St. Ursula and her eleven
thousand virgins, whose bones may be seen in musty
presses in the Church of the Ursulines in Cologne;
but still as it moves forward, it is evident that the
mighty work continues to enlarge its proportions.
The winter is coining on too, a period crowded
with the memorials of departed saints, as being
unpropitious to men of highly ascetic habits, so
that those who have undertaken the completion
of the Bollandist enterprise have their work before them.
There is a marvellous uniformity in all the arrangements of this array of volumes which have
thus appeared at intervals throughout two centuries. They dealt with matter too sublimely separated from the temporal doings of men to be affected
by political events, yet could they not entirely escape some slight touches from the convulsions that
had recast the whole order and conditions of society.  When October was begun, Belgium, where
the work is published, was attached to the Austrian
Empire, and the French Revolution had not yet
come.  The Jesuits, though not favorites among




THE EARLY N70RTHERN SAINTS.   351
monarchs, profess a decorous loyalty, and the earlier
volumes of the month have portraits of the Empress
Queen, and others of the Imperial family, in the
most elaborate court costume of the days before the
Revolution; while the later volumes, still loyal, are
illustrated by the family circle of the Protestant
king of constitutional Belgium, whose good-humored face and plain broadcloth coat are those
doubtless of the right man, though one cannot help
imagining that he feels himself somehow in the
wrong place.
The crowds of saints who come sometimes swarming in on a single day to these teeming volumes, give
one an almost oppressive notion of the quantity of
goodness that must have after all existed in this
wicked world.  The labors of the Bollandists, not
only in searching through all available literature,
but in a special correspondence established with
their Jesuit brethren throughout the world, are absolutely astounding.  Their conscientious minuteness is wonderful; and many a one who thinks he
is master of the ecclesiastical lore of his own parish,
which he has made his specialty, has been petrified
to find what he thought his discoveries all laid
down with careful precision as matters of ordinary
knowledge in some corner of these mighty volumes.
The Bollandists obtained their information from the
spot, and it is on the spot that this kind of literature must be worked out. A thoroughly accomplished antiquary, working within a limited district,
will thus bring forth more full and satisfactory re



352        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
suits, so far as they go, than even the Bollandists
have achieved, and hence the great value of the
services of the book clubs to hagiology.
The writer of the letters bearing the signature' Veritas " in all the newspapers, would, of course,
specially object to the resuscitation of this class of
literature, because it is full of fabulous accounts of
miracles and other supernatural events which can
only minister to credulity and superstition. But
even in the extent and character of this very element there is a great significance. The size of a
current falsehood is the measure of the size of the
human belief that has swallowed it, and is a component part of the history of man.
The best critical writers on ancient history have
agreed not to throw away the cosmogony and the
hierology of Greece.  It is part of Grecian history
that the creed of the people was filled with a love
of embodied fancies, so graceful and luxuriant. No
less are the revel rout of Valhalla part of the virtual
history of the Scandinavian tribes. But the lives
of our saints, independently altogether of the momentous change in human affairs and prospects
which they ushered in, have a substantial hold on
history, of which neither the classical nor the northern hierology can boast. Poseidon and Aphrodite,
Odin and Freya, vanish into the indefinite and undiscoverable at the approach of historical criticism.
But separately altogether from their miracles, Cuthbert and Ninian, Columba and Kentigern, had actual existences. We know when they lived and




TilE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    353
when they died. The closer that historical criticism
dogs their steps, the clearer it sees them, and the
more it knows about their actual lives and ways.
Even if they were not the missionaries who introduced Christianity among us, - as men who, in the
old days before Britain became populous and affllent in the fruits of advanced civilization, trod the
soil that we tread, it would be interesting to know
about them - about the habitations they lodged in,
the garments they wore, the food they ate, the language they spoke, their method of social intercourse
among each other, and the sort of government under which they lived.
That by investigation and critical inquiry we can
know more of these things than our ancestors of
centuries past could know, is still a notion comparatively new which has not been popularly realized.
The classic literature in which our early training
lies has nothing in it to show us the power of historical inquiry, and much to make us slight it. The
Romans, instead of improving on the Greeks, fell
in this respect behind them.  Father Herodotus,
credulous as he was, was a better antiquary than
any who wrote in Latin before the revival of letters.
Occupied entirely with the glory of their conquests,
and blind to the future which their selfish tyranny
was preparing for them, the Romans were equally
thoughtless of the past, unless it were exaggerated
and falsified into a narrative to aggrandize their own
glory. Their authors abdicated the duty of leaving
to the world the true narrative of the early strug23




354        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
gles and achievements out of which the Republic
and the Empire arose. It is easy to be sceptical at
any time. We can cut away Romulus and Remus
from accepted history now, hundreds of years after
the Empire has ceased to govern or exist. But the
golden opportunity for sifting the genuine out of the
fabulous has long passed away. It is seldom possible to construct the infant histories of departed
nationalities.  The difference between the facilities
which a nation has for finding out its own early
history, and those which strangers have for constructing it when the nationality has allowed its
death-bed to pass over without the performance of
that patriotic task, is nearly as great as a man's own
facilities for writing the history of his youth, and
those of the biographer who makes inquiries about
him after he is buried.
We are becoming wiser than the Romans in this
as in other matters, and are constructing the infant
histories of the various European nations, out of the
materials which each possesses.  The biographies
of those saints or missionaries who first diffused the
light of the Gospel among the various communities
of the Christian north, form a very large element
in these materials; and no wonder, when we remember that the Church possessed all the literature
of the age, such as it was. In applying, however,
to the British Empire, this new source of historical
information, there arose the difficulty that it was
chiefly supplied from Ireland. If all hagiology
were under a general suspicion of the fabulous,




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    355
Irish history was known to be a luxuriant preserve
of fables, and these causes of dubiety being multiplied by each other in the mind, it seemed almost
impossible to obtain a hearing for the new voice.
In fact, during a long period the three nations were
engaged in a competition which should carry its
history through the longest track of fictitious glory,.
and this was a kind of work in which Ireland beat.
her neighbors entirely.  Hence, when all were~
pressing pretty close upon the Deluge, Ireland took:
the leap at once and cleared that gulf. As a fairish
record of these successful efforts, I would recommend to the reader's notice a very well-conditioned,
and truly learned-looking folio volume, called c" The
General History of Ireland, collected by the learned.
Jeffiiey Keating, D. D., faithfully translated from
the original Irish Language, with many curious
Amendments taken from the Psalters of Tara and
Cashel, with other authentic Records, by Dermod
O'Connor, Antiquary to the Kingdom  of Ireland."
Opposite to the title-page is a full-length portrait of
Brian Boroomh, whose fame has been increased of
late years by the achievements of his descendant in
the cabbage-garden. The monarch is in full burnished plate armor, with scarf and surcoat —all
three centuries at least later in fashion than the era
attributed to him.  But that is a trifle.  It would
involve much hard and useless work to make war
on the anachronisms of historical portraits, and we
are not to judge of historical works by their engraved decorations.  Here, however, the picture




856        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
is sober truth itself to what the inquiring reader
finds in the typography.  After the descriptive
geographical introduction common in old histories,
the real commencement comes upon us in this
form:' "Of the first invasion of Ireland before the
Flood! "  "Various," the author tells us, " are
the opinions concerning the first mortal that set a
foot upon this island. We are told by some that
three of the daughters of Cain arrived here, several hundred years before the Deluge. The White
Book, which in the Irish is called Leabhar Dhroma
Sneachta, informs us that the oldest of these daughters was called Banba, and gave a name to the
whole kingdom. After these, we are told that three
men and fifty women arrived in the island; one of
them was called Ladhra, from whom was derived
the name of Ardladhan. These people lived forty
years in the country, and at last they all died of a
certain distemper in a week's time. From their
death, it is said that the island was uninhabited for
the space of an hundred years, till the world was
drowned. We are told that the first who set foot
upon the island were three fishermen that were
driven thither by a storm from the coast of Spain.
They were pleased with the discovery they had
made, and resolved to settle in the country; but
they agreed first to go back for their wives, and in
their return were unfortunately drowned by the
waters of the Deluge at a place called Tuath Inbhir.
The names of these three fishermen were Capa,




TEIE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    357
Laighne, and Luasat. Others, again, are of opinion
that Ceasar, the daughter of Bith, was the first that
came into the island before the Deluge..... When
Noah was building the ark to preserve himself and
his family from the Deluge, Bith, the father of
Ceasar, sent to desire an apartment for him and his
daughter, to save them from the approaching danger. Noah, having no authority from Heaven to
receive them into the ark, denied his request. Upon
this repulse, Bith Fiontan, the husband of Ceasar,
and Ladhra heri brother, consulted among themselves what measures they should take in this extrernity."
The result was, that, like the Laird of Macnab,
they "built a boat o' their ain," but on a much
larger scale, being a fair match with the ark itself.
But justice must be done to every one.  The
learned Dr. Keating does not give us all this as
veritable history; on the contrary, being of a sceptical turn of mind, he has courage enough to stem
the national prejudice, and throw doubt on the narrative. He even rises up into something like eloquent scorn when he discusses the manner in which
some antediluvian annals were said to be preserved.
Thus:"As for such of them who say that Fiontan was
drowned in the Flood, and afterwards came to life,
and lived to publish the antediluvian history of the
island - what can they propose by such chimericali
relations, but to amuse the ignorant with strange
and romantic tales, to corrupt and perplex the orig



358       BOOI-CLUB LITERATURE.
inal annals, and to raise a jealousy that no manner
of credit is to be given to the true and authentic
chronicles of that kingdom? "
I shall quote no more until after the doctor, having exhausted his sceptical ingenuity about the antediluvian stories, finds himself again on firm ground,
prepared to afford his readers, without any critical
misgivings, " anl account of the first inhabitants of
Ireland after the Flood."  He now tells us with
simple and dignified brevity that "6 the kingdom of
Ireland lay waste and uninhabited for the space of
three hundred years after the Deluge, till Partholalnus, son of Seara, son of Sru, son of Easru, son of
Framant, son of Faathochda, son of Magog, son of
Japhet, son of Noah, arrived there with his people."
From such a patriarchal nomenclature the reader of
Keating is suddenly introduced to a story of domestic scandal, in which a "footman " and a " favorite
greyhound" make their frequent appearance. Then
follow many great epochs - the arrival of the Firbolgs, the dynasty of the Tuatha de Danans, with
revolutions and battles countless, before we come to
the commencement of a settled dynasty of kings, of
whom more than ninety reigned before the Christian era. It is, after all, more sad than ridiculous
to remember that within the present generation
many historians believed not only what Keating
thus tells as truth, but also what he ventured to
doubt; and if the English antiquaries, according
to their wont, called for records, — did these not
exist abundantly, if they could be got at, in those




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    359
authentic genealogies, which were from time to
time adjusted and collated with so much skill and
scrupulous accuracy  by the official antiquaries
who met in the Hall of Tara?  The reader unacquainted with this out-of-the-way and rather
weedy corner of literature, may think this vague
exaggeration, and I shall finish it by quoting the
latest printed, so far as I know, of the numerous
solemn and methodical statements about the manner in which the records of these very distant matters were authenticated.
"' When the said princes got the kingdom into
their hands, they assigned large territories to their
antiquaries and their posterity to preserve their
pedigree, exploits, actions, &c.; and so very strict
they were on this point, that they established a
triennial convention at Tara, where the chief kings
of Ireland dwelt, where all the antiquaries of the
nation met every third year to have their chronicles and antiquities examined before the king of
Ireland, the four provincial kings, the king's antiquary-royal, &c.; the least forgery in the antiquary
was punished with death, and loss of estate to his posterity forever - so very exact they were in preserving their venerable monuments, and leaving them
to posterity truly and candidly; so that even at this
day (though our nation lost estate and all almost)
there is not an ancient name of Ireland, of the
blood-royal thereof descended, but we can bring,
from  father to father, from  the present man in
being to Adam — and I, Thaddy O'Roddy, who




360       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
wrote this, have written all the families of the
Milesian race from this present age to Adam." 1
To all this preposterous, and now scarcely credible extravagance of fiction, there attaches a melancholy political moral. Poor Ireland, trodden by
a dominant party whose hand was strengthened by
her potent neighbor, sought relief from the gloom
of the present, by looking far back into the fabulous glories of the past- and it seemed the last
drop in her cup of bitterness when this pleasant
vista was also to be closed by the hard utilitarian
hand of the unsympathizing Saxon.
After "this sort of thing" it was naturally difficult to get sensible men to listen to proposals for
opening valuable new sources of early history in
Ireland. In fact, down to the time when Moore
wrote his History in 1835, no one could venture to
look another in the face when speaking of the early
Irish annals, and the consequence was that that accomplished author wilfully shut his eyes to the rich
supply of historical materials in which he might
have worked to brilliant effect.
Yet, upon the general face of history, it must on
examination have been fairly seen that Ireland is
the natural place where a great proportion of whatever is to be known about the primitive Church in
the British Islands was to be found. Indeed, in the
history of Christianity, not the least wonderful chapter contains the episode of the repose in the West,
where a portion of the Church, having settled down,
1 Miscel. of Irish Arch. Soc., i. 120.




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   361
grew up in calm obscurity, protected by distance
from the desolating contest which was breaking up
the Empire of the world, and raged more or less
wherever the Roman sway had penetrated. Of the
southern Britons it could no longer be said, as in
the days of Augustus, that they were cut off from
all the world. England was an integral part of the
Empire, where if the proconsul or legionary commander had not the hot sun and blue sky of Italy,
there were partial compensations in the bracing air
which renewed his wasted strength, the new and
peculiar luxuries in the shape of shell-fish and wildfowl that enriched his table, and the facilities which
his insular authority afforded him for strengthening
his political position, and plotting for a fragment of
the disintegrating Empire. An admiral of the Roman fleet had at one time established his power in
Britain, where he set up as Caesar, and sought to
create a new imperial centre. Thus the southern
part of Britain was a province of the true Roman
Empire awaiting the coming of the wild hordes who
were gathering for the general overthrow, and was
not the place where either the Christian Church or
Italian civilization could find permanent refuge.
The destined destroyer was indeed close at hand.
Though the Romans had their walls, their roads,
their forts, and even a few villas in Scotland, yet
one going northward at that time through the territories of the Gadeni and the Otadeni, would observe
the Romanized character of the country gradually
decreasing, until he found himself among those




362        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
rough independent northern tribes who, under the
name of Picts and Scots, drove the Romanized
Britons into the sea, and did for the insular portion
of the Empire what the hordes who were called
Goths, Franks, and Alemanni, were doing in the
Roman provinces of the Continent.
Behind the scene of this destructive contest,
Christianity, having been planted, flourished in
peaceful poverty.  It grew  here and there over
Ireland, and in a small portion of the remote part
of Scotland; and the distance from the scene of
warfare necessary for its safety is shown by the
fate of St. Ninian's little church in the Mull of
Galloway. It was too near the field of strife to
live. The isolation in which the western Christians
thus arose, was productive of ecclesiastical conditions very remarkable in themselves, but perfectly
natural as the effects of their peculiar causes.  The
admirable organization for carrying out the civil
government of the Roman empire, was a ready-made
hierarchy for carrying out the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. It was far from the
object of those who seized on the power of the
C(tsars to abolish that power. On the contrary,
they desired to work it on their own account, and
thus the machinery of the Empire lived, exercising
more or less vitality and power, down to the first
French Revolution.
No part of its civil organization, however, retained the comprehensive vitality which the learning and subtlety of the priesthood enabled them to




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    363
preserve, or rather restore, to its spiritual branch.
Hence, wherever the conquerors of Rome held
sway, there the priests of Rome obtained a sway
also. But the one little fragment of the primitive
Church, which had been so curiously cut off during
the great contest, was beyond the sway of the conquerors of Rome, as it had been beyond the sway
of the Emperors themselves.  Hence, while the
Church, as united to Rome, grew up in one great
uniform hierarchy, the small, isolated Church in the
West grew up with different usages and characteristics; and when afterwards those who followed
themn were charged with schism, they asserted that
they had their canons and usages directly from the
apostles, from whom they had obtained the Gospel
and the regulations of the Church pure and undefiled.  Thus arose the renowned contest between
the early Scottish Church and the rest of Christendom about the proper period of observing Easter,
and about the form  of the tonsure.  Hence, too,
arose the debates about the peculiar discipline of
the communities called Culdees, who, having to
frame their own system of church government for
themselves, humble, poor, and isolated as they
were, constructed it after a different fashion from
the potent hierarchy of Rome.  The history of
these corporations possesses extreme interest, even
to those who follow it without a predetermined
design to identify every feature of their arrangements with a modern English diocese, or with a
modern Scottish presbytery; and not the least




364        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
interesting portion of this history is its conclusion,
in the final absorption, not without a struggle, of
these isolated communities within the expanding
hierarchy of the popes.
In a few humble architectural remains, these
primitive bodies have left vestiges of their peculiar
character to the present day. Neither deriving the
form of their buildings nor their other observances
from Rome, they failed to enter with the rest of the
Church on that course of construction which led
towards Gothic architecture. The earliest Christian
churches on the Continent were constructed on the
plan of the Roman basilica, or court of justice, and
wherever the Church of Rome spread, this method
of construction went with her.  The oldest style of
church-building — that which used to be called
Saxon, and is now sometimes termed Norman, and
sometimes Romanesque -degenerated directly from
the architecture of Rome.  There are ecclesiastical
buildings in France and Italy, of which it might
fairly be debated, from their style, whether they
were built by the latest of the classical, or the earliest of the Gothic architects. The little Church
in the West had not the benefit of such models.
Places of worship, and cells, or oratories, were built
of timber, turf, or osiers. The biographer of Columba describes his followers as collecting wattles
for the construction of their first edifice. But they
had also a few humble dwellings of stone, which,
naturally enough, had no more resemblance to the
proud fanes of the Romish hierarchy, than the prim



THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    365
itive edifices of Mexico and New Zealand had to
those of modern Europe. They were first found in
Ireland; more lately, they have been traced in the
Western Isles.  They are small rude domes of
rough stone; and if it may seem strange that the
form adapted to the grandest of all architectural
achievements should be accomplished by those rude
masons who could not make a Roman arch, it must
be remembered, that while the arch cannot be
constructed without artificial support or scaffolding,
a dome on a small scale may, and is indeed the
form to which rude artists, with rude stones, and no
other materials, would naturally be driven. It is
that in which boys build their snow-houses. I shall
not easily forget how, once, accompanying a piscatorial friend on the Loch of Curaan, near Ballyskelligs, in Kerry, I stepped on a small island to
visit a Norman ruin there, and saw, besides the ruin
and a stone cross, one of these small rough domes,
testifying, by its venerable simplicity, that it had
stood there centuries before the Norman church
beside it.  But the peculiar characteristics of the
architecture of the West did not stop short with
these simple types.  It advanced, carrying in its
advance its own significant character, until it became mingled with the architecture propagated
from Rome, as the Christian community which
worshipped within the buildings became absorbed
in the hierarchy.  The Oratory of Galerus, in
Kerry, is a piece of solid, well-conditioned masonry,
built after a plan of no mean symmetry and propor



366        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
tion, yet with scarcely a feature in common with
the early Christian churches of the rest of Europe.
Like the ruder specimens, it struggles for as much
solidity and spaciousness as it can obtain in stonework without the help of the arch, and it makes a
good deal out of the old Egyptian plan of gradually
narrowing the courses of stones inwards, until they
come so near that large slabs of stone can be thrown
across the opening. Some buildings of the same
sort have been lately revealed in the island of
Lewis: one named Teampul Rona, and another,
which is dedicated to St. Flannan, Teampul Beannachadh.1  The specialty of both these, as well as
of the Irish buildings, is that they are edifices beyond all question raised for Christian worship, that
they have been built with pains and skill, and yet
that they have no vestige of that earlier type of
Christian architecture which Europe in general
obtained from Rome.
In offering a few stray remarks on the lives of
the saints, or, more properly speaking, the missionaries, whose labors lay in the British Isles, it would
be pedantic to cite the precise document, printed
generally for one or other of the book clubs, which
supplies the authority for each sentence. I must,
however, mention one authority which stands superior among its brethren - the edition of Adamnan's
Life of St. Columba, edited by Dr. Reeves, under
1 See Mr. Mure's very curious volume on " Characteristics of
Old Church Architecture in the Mainland and Western Islands
of Scotland."




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   367
the joint patronage of the Irish Archeological and
the Bannatyne Clubs. The original work has long
been accepted as throwing a light on the Christianizing of the North, second only to that shed by the
invaluable morsels in Bede.  With wonderful industry and learning, the editor has incorporated the
small book of Adamnan in a mass of new matter,
every word of which is equally instructive and interesting to the student.
There is no doubt that the saints of Irish origin
supply by far the more important portion of our
hagiology. They are countless. Taking merely a
topographical estimate of them - looking, that is,
to the names of places which have been dedicated
to them, or otherwise bear their names - we find
them crowding Ireland, and swarming over the
Highlands of Scotland and the North of England
into London itself, where St. Bride's Well has
given a gloomy perpetuity to the name of the first
and greatest of Irish female saints. Some people
would be content to attribute the frequentness of
saintship among the Irish and the Highlanders to
the opportunities enjoyed by them from the early
Church having found a refuge in Ireland. Others
would attribute the phenomenon to the extreme
susceptibility of the Celtic race to religious enthusiasm, and would illustrate their views by referring
to the present Celtic population in Ireland under
the dominion of the priests, and their brethren of
the west of Scotland equally under the dominion of
the doctrinal antipodes of the priests; while the




368       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
parallel might be illustrated by a reference to those
Highland Franciscans called "c The Men," whose
belcher neckcloths represent the cord, and their
Kilmarnock bonnets the cowl.
At the commencement of Christianity the difference between the religious Celt and the religious
Saxon was naturally far more conspicuous than it
is now. Bede's description of the thoughtful calmness with which Ethelbert studied the preaching
of Augustin, with all the consequences which the
adoption of the new creed must bring upon his
kingdom, is still eminently characteristic of the
Saxon nature. In the life of St. Wilbrord a scene
is described which is not easily alluded to with dclue
reverence. The saint had prevailed on a Frisian
Prince to acknowledge Christianity, and be baptized. Standing by the font, with one foot in the
water, a misgiving seized on him, and he inquired
touching his ancestors, whether the greater number
of them were in the regions of the blessed, or in
those of the spirits doomed to everlasting perdition.
On being abruptly told by the honest saint that
they were all, without exception, in the latter region, he withdrew his foot - he would not desert
his race - he would go to the place where he would
find his dead ancestors.
The conversion of the Picts by Columba seems to
have proceeded deliberately. We find him, in the
narrative of his life, exercising much influence on
Brud their king, and occasionally enjoying a visit
to the royal lodge on the pleasant banks of Loch



THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    369
ness. There he is seen commending his friend and
fellow-laborer St. Cormac to the good offices of the
Regulus of the Orkney Islands, who is also at the
court of Brud, to whom he owes something akin to
allegiance; for Columba looks to Brud as well as
to the Orcadian guest for the proper attention being
paid to Cormac. Still, honored and respected as he
is in the court of the Pictish monarch, Columba is
not that omnipotent person which he finds himself
to be in Dalriada and in Ireland. There still sits
an unpleasant personage at the king's gate.  A
Magus, as he is called - a priest of the old heathen
religion - is in fact well received at court, where,
although doomed to be superseded by the Christian
missionary, he yet seems to have been retained by
the king, as a sort of protest that he had not put
himself entirely under the control of the priests of
the new doctrine.
It was indeed among their own people, the Celts
of Ireland and of the Irish colony in the west of
Scotland, that the reign of these saints was absolute. But if we count this ecclesiastical influence a
feature of the Celtic nation, either the Welsh must
not be counted as Celts, or they must be looked on
as exceptions from this spiritual dominion. They
were the people among whom, of all the tribes who
inhabited Britain between the days of Julius Caesar
and those of William of Normandy, it might have
been primarily expected that we would find the
most vital Christianity and the greatest missionary
force. They professed to have carried with them
24




370       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE,
into their mountains the traditions and the nationality of that very important portion of the Christianized Roman Empire which was called Britannia.
When the heart of the Empire became paralyzed,
this branch, doubtless after a long harassing contest with the Picts and the Irish of the North,
was broken, and partly subjected, partly driven
away by the Saxons.  That they should have
failed, through all their revolutions and calamities,
to preserve any remnants of Roman social habits,
is not perhaps wonderful. But that they should
have failed to preserve enough of Christian influence to second and support the missions sent to
the Saxons, so soon after these had superseded the
British power, looks like an exception to the usual
rule of Christian progress. The Welsh antiquaries,
through meritorious efforts, strive in vain to establish the existence of Welsh ecclesiarchs during the
time when the countless saints of Ireland were
swarming over Scotland and penetrating into England. They point to a stone said to commemorate
a victory gained over the Picts and the Saxons by
the Britons, not through their courage or their skill
in fight, but by the Halleluiahs raised by two saints
who were present in their host. These saints, however, Garmon and Lupus, were, as Bede tells us,
Frenchmen, missionaries from the Gallican Church
to correct the errors of the Britons. The venerable
Bede scolds these Britons roundly for not having
kept up the faith planted among them, and for
not having been prepared to help Augustin and his




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    371
followers in the very hard task of converting the
Saxons. It is a pity that we do not know something more of Roman Christianity, and indeed of
Roman civilization generally in Britain, before the
Saxon days. There appears to have been among
the Romanized British Christians little zeal and a
good deal of controversy and dissent, and we hear
a great deal more of the influence of the Pelagianm
heresy among them than of the influence of Chris —
tianity itself.
The scantiness of our acquaintance with Roman;
Christianity in Britain is the more to be regretted,
because it would have been very interesting to compare its manifestations with those of the Church
which found refuge in the West during the dark
days of Rome —the days when the temporal empire was crushed, and the spiritual empire had not
arisen. As we might expect from the ecclesiastical conditions already noticed, the persons who first
exercised ecclesiastical authority in the two islands
did not derive their strength from any foreign hierarchy, and had no connection with Rome. Any
reference, indeed, to the influence of a Roman pontiff, either actual or prospective, in the life of any
of our early saints, will prepare the critic for finding that the life has been written centuries after the
era of the saint, or has been tampered with. In
Adamnan's Life of Columba, Rome is mentioned
once or twice as a very great city, but there is no
allusion throughout that remarkable biography to
any spiritual central authority exercised by the




372       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
bishop there over the presbyters in Scotland and
Ireland. This is, of course, nothing more than the
statement of what the reader of a book has not
found in it. Any other reader may find allusions
to the supremacy of the popedom over these early
Christian communities, if he can. But I think he
is likely to find none; and any one who desires to
study the real history of the rise and progress of
the spiritual dominion of Rome would, with more
profit, take up the books and records referring to
events three or four hundred years after the age of
Columba.
Self-sustained as they were, these isolated communities had a very strong vitality. The picture
exhibited in the hagiographies is truly the reign of
the saints. Their power was of an immediate, abrupt, and purely despotic kind, which would have,been neutralized or weakened by anything like a,central control. Prompt and blind obedience to the
commands of the saint-superior was the rule of Hy
or Iona, and of all the other religious communities
of the West. Perhaps there were even here feuds,
disputes, and mutinies of which no record has been
preserved. The hagiographer can only commemorate those which were suppressed by some terrible
manifestation of Divine power, for the person whose'life he commemorates is only conventionally and,nominally to be spoken of as a mortal; he is in,reality superhuman, wielding, whenever he pleases,
4the thunderbolts of the Deity, annihilating dissent
and disobedience to himself, as if it were blasphemy




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   373
in the Deity's own presence, and crushing by an
immediate miracle any effort to oppose his will,
were it even about the proper hour of setting off
on a journey, or the dinner to be ordered for the
day.
The rank which those primitive clergy of Ireland
and the Highlands occupy is almost invariably that
of the saint, a rank as far separated from that which
can be conferred by any human hierarchy as heaven
is from earth. They were, as we have seen, independent of Rome from the beginning, and this great
host of saints had lived and left their biographies to
the world long before the system of judicial canonization. How a boundairy is professed to be drawn
between the genuine and the false among these
saints of the North, cannot be easily understood.
No one seems to object to any of them as spurious.
Many of them are so very obscure that only faint
and fragmentary traces of them can be found, yet it
seems never to be questioned that they occupied the
transcendent spiritual rank usually attributed to
them. Of others nothing is known but the bare
name, yet it is never doubted that the owner was
entitled to his attribute of saint.
The brethren at Iona seem sometimes to have
lived well, for we hear of the killing of heifers and
oxen. A pragmatical fellow declines to participate
in the meal permitted on the occasion of a relaxation of discipline - the saint tells him that since he,
refuses good meat at a time when he is permitted to
have it, it is to be his doom to be one of a band of'




374        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
robbers who will be glad to appease their hunger on
putrid horse-flesh. The ruling spirit, however, of
this first Christian mission, as we find it recorded,
is undoubtedly asceticism.  The mortification of
the flesh is the temporal source of spiritual power.
Some incidents occur which put this spirit in a
shape bordering on the ludicrous.  A saint is at
a loss to know how his power is waning. There
is some mysterious countervailing influence acting
against him, which manifests itself in the continued
success of an irreverent king or chief, whom  he
thought he had taken the proper spiritual methods
to humble.  He at last discovers the mystery; the
king had been fasting against him -entering the
field of asceticism with him, in short, and not without success.
The biography of an Asiatic despot, so far as
other persons are concerned, is merely the history
of his commands and their obedience.  It is only
incidentally, therefore, that one is likely to acquire
any information from it about the people over whom
he rules. In like manner, the life of an Irish saint
is the history of commanding and obeying; yet a
few glimpses of social life may be caught through
occasional chinks.  The relation which the spiritual
"held towards the temporal powers is sufficiently
(developed to give ground for considerable inquiry:and criticism. The more eminent of the saints bad
great influence in state affairs, ruling in some measure the monarchs themselves.  Some monarch is
occasionally mentioned as the friend of Columba,




THE, EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    375
much as a bishop might allude to this or that lay
lord as among his personal friends. We find him
settling the succession of Aidan, the king of the
Dalriadic Scots, through an influence to which any
opposition was utterly hopeless. Send your sons to
me, he says to Aidan, and God will show me who
is to be your successor. The sign falls on Eochoid
Buidh, and the saint tells the king that all his other
sons will come to a premature end, and they drop
off accordingly, chiefly in battle. This power of
fixing the evil eye, of prophesying death, is found
in perpetual use among the early saints. It is their
ultimate appeal in strife and contest, and their instrument of vengeance when thwarted or affronted;
and a terrible instrument it must have been. Who
could gainsay those believed to hold in their hands
-the issues of life and death?
In our conceptions of the kings with whom these
saints were familiar, it may be well not to be misled
by words.  We shall realize them  better at the
present day by looking to Madagascar or the Marquesas Islands than among the states of Europe.
The palace was a shanty of' log or wattle, protected,
perhaps, by a rampart of earth or uncemented
stones, and the king had a stone chair with a few
mystic decorations scratched on it, which served for
his throne on state occasions. The prospect of acquiring a gold torque or a silver drinking-cup would
have a material influence over his imperial policy.
Were we to believe the fabulous historians, Ireland
was for centuries a compact kingdom under one im



376       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
perial sovereign, who presided over subsidiary rulers
in the provinces. But although sometimes one provincial king was powerful enough to keep the others
in subjection, old Celtic Ireland never was a kingdom, properly speaking, for it never had a nationality. Some people maintain, not without reason,
that the facility with which a nationality resolves
itself into existence depends much, not only on
race, but on geological conditions.  The Celtic
Irish seem to have always been too busy with
local feuds and rivalries to achieve any broad nationality. And the nature of their country —a
vast plain intersected by morasses and rivers, and
here and there edged with mountain ranges —is
unfavorable to the growth of a nationality, since it
presents no general centre of defence against a foreign enemy, like that great central range of mountains in Scotland, which Columba's biographers call
the Dorsum Britannie - tile Backbone of Britain.
Ireland, indeed, seems to have had no conception of
a nationality until such a thing was suggested by
the Normans and the Saxons, after they had been
long enough there to feel patriotic. And so it has
generally happened that any alarming outbreaks
against the imperial government have been led by
people of Norman or Saxon descent.
Still there is no doubt, difficult as it may be to
realize the idea, that at the times with which we
are dealing, Ireland enjoyed a kind of civilization,
which enabled its princes and its priests to look
down on Pictland, and even on Saxon England, as




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   377
barbarian.  The Roman dominion had not penetrated among them, but the very remoteness which
kept the island beyond the boundaries of the Empire also kept it beyond the range of the destroyers
of the Empire, and made it in reality the repository
of the vestiges of imperial civilization in the north.
Perhaps the difference between the two grades of
civilization might be about the same as we could
have found ten years ago between Tahiti and New
Zealand.
An extensive and minute genealogical ramification, when it is authentic, is a condition of a pretty
far advanced state of civilization.  Abandoning the
old fabulous genealogies which went back among
the Biblical patriarchs, the rigid antiquaries of Ireland find their way through authentic sources to
genealogical connections of a truly marvellous extent.  Such illustrious men as the saints can of
course be easily traced, as all were proud to establish connection with them, while Columba himself
and several others were men of royal descent. But
of the casual persons mentioned in the Life of Columba, Dr. Reeves hunts out the genealogy - fully
as successfully, one would say, as that of any persons of the country-gentleman class in Britain, living at the beginning of this century, could be established. There are, indeed, many characteristics in
the hagiologic literature bearing an analogy to modern social habits so close as to be almost ludicrous;
and it is not easy to deal with these conditions of a
very distant age, brought to us as they are through




378       BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
the vehicle of a language which is neither classical
nor vernacular, but conventional - the corrupt
Latin in which the biographers of the saints found
it convenient to write. It would appear that when
he was in Ireland, St. Columba kept his carriage,
and the loss of the lynch-pin on one occasion, is
connected with a notable miracle. Dr. Reeves, as
appropriate to this, remarks that "the memoirs of
St. Patrick in the Book of Armagh make frequent
mention of his chariot, and even name his driver."
It is difficult to suppose such a vehicle ever becoming available in Iona; but there Columba seems to
have been provided with abundance of vessels, and
he could send for a friend, in the way in which
MacGillicallum's'" carriage," in the form of a boat,
was sent for Johnson and Boswell.
There are many other things in these books
which have a sound more familiar to us than any
sense which they really convey.  Here the saint
blesses the store of a "homo plebeius cum uxore
et filiis " - a poor man with a wife and family -
a term expressively known in this day among all
who have to deal with the condition of their fellowmen, from the chancellor of the exchequer to the
relieving-officer. In the same chapter we are told,
" de quodam viro divito tenacissimo " - of a very
hard-fisted rich fellow - a term thoroughly significant in civilized times. He is doomed, by the way,
to become bankrupt, and fall into such poverty that
his offspring will be found dead in a ditch - a fate
also intelligible in the nineteenth century. In an



THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    379
other place we have among the saint's suitors "plebeius pauperrimus, qui in ea habitabat regione qum
Stagni litoribus Aporici est contermina."  The
"Stagrnum Aporicum" is Lochaber; so here we
have a pauper from the neighborhood of Lochaber
- a designation which I take to be familiarly
known at "the. Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor in Scotland." We are told, too,
of the saint being at a plebeian feast, and of a plebeius in the island of Raghery quarrelling with his
wife.
The thoughtful student will find a more distinguished analogy with the habits of later civilization
in the literature of these early churchmen.  The
subject of the introduction of letters into Ireland,
and the very early literature of that country, is
too large to be handled here. It is certain that in
Columba's era, the middle of the sixth century,
books were written and used in Ireland.  The respect paid to a book in that age was something
beyond that of the most ardent book-hunter.
Many of the most exciting of the saintly miracles
have for their end the preservation of a book in fire
or in water. The custody of the Book of Armagh
containing St. Patrick's canons was a great hereditary office; and the princely munificence which
provided the book with a suitable case or shrine
in the tenth century is recorded in Irish history.
Besides their costly shrines already referred to,
these books often had for an outer covering a bag
or satchel, in which the sacred deposit was carried




380         BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
from place to place. The heart must be dead to
all natural sensations that does not sympathize with
Dr. Reeves in the following triumphant announcement: -
"Of leather cases the cover of the Book of Armagh is the most interesting example now remaining. It came, together with its inestimable inclosure, into the writer's possession at the end of 1853,
and is now lying before him. It is formed of a single piece of strong leather, 36 inches long and 12
broad, folded in such a way as to form a six-sided
case 12 inches long, 123 broad, and 23 thick, having a flap which doubles over in front, and is furnished with a rude lock and eight staples, admitted
through perforations in the flap, for short iron rods
to enter and meet at the lock. The whole outer
surface, which has become perfectly black from age,
is covered with figures and interlacings of the Irish
pattern in relief, which appear to have been produced by subjecting the leather, in a damp state,
before it was folded, to pressure upon a block of
the whole size, having a depressed pattern, and
allowing it to remain until the impression became
indelible."
A pleasing peculiarity in the personal habits of
these recluses is their frequent communion with
birds and the gentler kind of beasts. Their legendary histories speak of these animals as apt mediums of vaticination and miraculous intervention;
but we must be content, in the present age, to suppose that their frequent appearance, their familiar




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   381
intercourse with the saints, and the quaint and amiable incidents in which they figure, are in reality
characteristic memorials of the kindly feelings and
the innocent pursuits natural to men of gentle disposition and retired life. Thus Columba one day
gives directions to a brother to be on the watch at
a certain point in the island of Iona, for there, by
nine o'clock on that day, a certain stranger stork
will alight and drop down, utterly fatigued with
her journey across the ocean.  That stork the
brother is enjoined to take up gently, and convey
to the nearest house, and feed and tend for three
days, after which she will take wing and fly away
to the sweet spot of her native Ireland, whence she
had wandered. And this the brother is to do because the bird is a guest from their own beloved
native land. The brother departs, and returns at
the proper time. Columba asks no questions - he
knows what has taken place, and commends the
obedient piety of the brother who had sheltered
and tended the wanderer.
Another saint, Ailbhe, had a different kind of
intercourse with certain cranes. Thev went about
in a large body, destroying the corn in the neighborhood, and would not be dispersed.  The saint
went and delivered an oration to them on the unreasonableness of their conduct, and forthwith, penitent and somewhat ashamed, they soared into the
air and went their way. " St. Cuthbert's ducks"
acquired a long celebrity. When that reverenced
ascetic went to take up his residence in the wave



382        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
bounded solitude of the Fame Islands, he found the
solan-geese there imbued with the wild habits common to their storm-nurtured race, and totally unconscious of the civilization and refinement of their
kinsmen who graze on commons, and hiss at children and dogs. St. Cuthbert tamed them through
his miraculous powers, and made them as obedient
and docile a flock as abbot ever ruled.  The geese
went before hin in regular platoons, following the
word of command, and doing what he ordered —
whether it might be the most ordinary act of the
feathered biped, or some mighty miracle. Under
his successors their conduct seems to have been less
regular, though certainly not less peculiar; for we
are told that they built their nests on the altar, and
around the altar, and in all the houses of the island;
further, that, during the celebration of mass, they
familiarly pecked the officiating priest and his assistants with their bills. It is curious enough that the
miraculous education of the birds makes its appearance in a Scottish legal or official document at the
close of the fifteenth century. It is an instrument
recording an attestation to the enormous value of
the down of these renowned birds; and seems, indeed, to be an advertisement or puff by merchants
dealing in the ware, though its ponderous Latinity
is in curious contrast with the neat examples of
that kind of literature to which we are accustomed
in these days.1
1 "Instrumentum super Aucis Sancti Cuthberti." - Spalding
Club.




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   383
One of the prettiest of the stories about birds is
divided between St. Serf, the founder of a monastery
on Loch Leven, and St. Kentigern, the patron of
Glasgow, where he is better known as St. Mungo.
Kentigern was one among a parcel of neophyte boys
whom the worthy old Serf, or Servanus, was perfecting in the knowledge of the truth. Their teacher
had a feathered pet -" qumdam avicula quve vulgo
ob ruborem corpusculi rubisca nuncupatur " — a
robin-redbreast in fact, an animal whose good fortune it is never to be mentioned without some
kindly reference to his universal popularity, and
the decoration which renders him so easily recognized wherever he appears. St. Serf's robin was a
wonderfiul bird; he not only took food from his
master's hand and pecked about him according to
the fashion of tame and familiar birds, but took a
lively interest in his devotions and studies by flapping his wings and crowing in his own little way,
so as to be a sort of chorus to the acts of the saint.
The old man enjoyed this extremely; and his biographer, with more geniality than hagiographers usually show, sympathizes with this innocent recreation, applying the example of the bow that was not
always bent in a manner suggestive of suspicions
that he was not entirely unacquainted with profane
letters.  One day, when the saint had retired to his
devotions, the boys amused themselves with his little pet; and a struggle arising among them for its
possession, the head was torn from the body - altogether a natural incident.  Thereupon, says the




384        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
narrator, fear was turned to grief, and the avenging
birch -   plagas virgarum quae puerorum gravissima
tormenta esse solent" - arose terribly in their sight.
It was at this moment that an unpopular pupil,
named Kentigern - a new boy, apparently - a
stranger who had not taken in good-fellowship to
the rest of the school, but was addicted to solitary
meditation, entered the guilty conclave.  Their
course was taken - they threw the fragments of
the bird into his hands and bolted. St. Serf enters, and the crew are awaiting in guilty exultation the bursting of his wrath.  The consecrated
youth, however, fitting the severed parts to each
other, signs the cross, raises his pure hands to
heaven, and breathes an appropriate prayer-when
lo! robin lifts his little head, expands his wings,
and hops away to meet his master.  In the eucharistic office of St. Kentigern's day, this event, along
with the restoration to life of a meritorious cook,
and other miracles, inspired a canticle which, for
long subsequent ages, was exultingly sung by the
choristers in the saint's own cathedral of Glasgow,
thus -
" Garrit ales pernecatus.
Cocus est resuscitatus.
Salit vervex trucidatus
Amputato capite."
A bird proper, on the shield argent of the city of
Glasgow, has been identified with the resuscitated
pet of the patron saint. The tree on which it is
there perched is a commemoration of another of the




THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   385
saint's miracles.  In a time.of frost and snow his
enemies had extinguished his fire; but immediately
drawing on the miraculous resources ever at the
command of his class on such emergencies, he
breathed fire into a frozen branch from the forest;
and it was centuries afterwards attested that the
green branches of that forest made excellent firewood.
Another element in the blazon of the Venice of
the west is a fish, laid across the stem of the tree,
" in base," as the heralds say, but not, as generally
depicted, conformable either to their science, or that
of the ichthyologist. This fish holds in its mouth
something like a dish - in reality a ring, and thus
commemorates a miraculous feat of the same saint,
which has found its way into the romances of the
juvenile portion of the reading public, where it is a
standard nuisance. Queen Cadyow, whose conduct
was of such a character that it is wonderful how
any respectable saint could have prevailed on himself to serve her, gives her bridal ring to a paramour.  Her husband lures the rival away to the
bank of the Clyde, to sleep after the fatigues of
the chase, and there, furtively removing the ring,'pitches it into the river.  The reader knows the result by instinct.  St. Kentigern, appealed to, directs
the first salmon that can be caught in the Clyde to
be opened, and there, of course, is the ring in the
stomach. This miracle is as common in the "Acta
Sanctorum " as in the juvenile romances.  It
served St. Nathalan in such a manner as to pre



386         BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
elude the supposition that the saint had invoked
it on the occasion.  He locked himself into iron
chains, and threw  their key into the river Dee,
in order that he might be unable to open the fetterlock before he had made a pilgrimage to the
tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul; but the water
did its duty, and restored the key in the stomach
of a fish.
We have naturally many fishing anecdotes connected with the northern saints.  Columba is described as out a-fishing one day1 with a parcel of
his disciples, who are characterized as " strenui
piscatores," a term which would be highly applicable to many a Waltonian of the present day.  The
saint, desirous of affording them a pleasant surprise,
directs them  to cast their net where a wonderful
fish was prepared for them; and they drag out an
"' esox" (whatever that may mean) of wonderful
size.
Some of the inhabitants of the deep familiar to
these saints were animals of a formidable kind.
Columba and a band of his disciples are going to
1 [What a comfortable thing is this genuine bit of English, -
out a-fishing! Why is it that the men who really have the power
to mould the language will not make a stand in favor of this fine
idiom, in which, as Ben Jonson says, "the participle hath the
force of a gerund"? Why shall we not continue to say, while
this thing was a-doing, instead of, while this thing was being
done; while the wall was a-building, instead of, while the wall
was being built? The one is simple, idiomatic English, that a
child or a wayfaring man can understand; and yet it is set aside
by exquisites in grammar in favor of the other complex, illogical barbarism. - W.]




THE EARLY NORTHE RN SAINTS.    387
cross the river Ness, when they meet those who
bear on their shoulders the body of one who, endeavoring to swim across the same river, had been
bitten to death by a monster of the deep. The
saint, in the face of this gloomy procession, requires
that one of his disciples shall swim across the Ness,.
and bring over a boat which is on the other side..
A disciple named Mocumin, whom the saint had
miraculously cured of a bleeding of the nose, confident in the protecting power of his master, pulls.
off all his clothes save his tunica (whatever that
may be- coat, kilt, or leathern shirt), and takes to
the water.  The monster, who is reposing deep
down in the stillness of the profoundest pool, hears.
the stir of the water above, and is seen to rise with
a splash on the surface, and make with distended
jaws for the swimmer. The saint, of course, orders
the beast back just at the moment when all seemed
over, and is instantly obeyed.  The characteristics
of the monster could not be more closely identical
with those of the crocodile or alligator, had the incident been narrated in Egypt or America.
Adventures with such monsters in our northern
waters supply many of the triumphs attributed to
the saints. St. Colman of Drumore actually extracted a young girl alive from the stomach of an
" aquetalis bestia." She had been swallowed while
standing on the edge of a lake, " camisiam  suam
lavantem- -washing'her chemise, poor simple soul.
St. Molua saw a monster, the size of a large boat,
in pursuit of two boys swimming unconscious of




388        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
danger in a lake in the county of Monaghan.  He
showed good worldly sense and presence of mind
on the occasion; for, instead of alarming them with
an announcement of their perilous condition, he
called out to them to try a race and see which
would reach the bank first. The beast, balked of
his prey, took in good part an admonition by the
saint, and returned no more to frighten boys.
From fishes and aquatic monsters the law of association naturally leads us to the waters themselves.
There are throughout the United Kingdom multitudes of wells, still bearing the names of the saints
to whom they were dedicated. Some of these, remote from cities and advanced opinions, are still
haunted by people, who believe them to be endowed
with supernatural healing virtues. It is in Romish
Ireland, of course, that this belief has its most legitimate seat, but even in the most orthodoxly-Presbyterian districts of Scotland, a lingering dubious
trust in the healing virtues of sanctified fountains
has given much perplexity to the clergy.
Some of these fountains are in caverns, and if in
any one of these the well falls into a rude-hewn
basin like a font, we may be sure that a hermit frequented the cave, and that it was the place of worship of early converts. Such a cave was the hidingplace, after the'45, of the worthy single-minded
Lord Pitsligo, no bad prototype of the Baron of
Bradwardine. It is entered by a small orifice like
a fox's hole, in the face of the rugged cliffs which
front the German Ocean near Troup-head. Grad



THFE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.   389
ually it rises to a noble arched cavern, at the end
of which stands the stone font, filled with clear
living water, which, save when it was the frugal
drink of the poor Jacobite refugee, has probably
been scarcely disturbed since the early day when
heathen men and women went thither to throw off
their idolatry and enter the pale of Christendom.
The unnoticeable smallness of many of these consecrated wells makes their very reminiscence and
still semi-sacred character all the more remarkable.
The stranger hears rumors of a distinguished well
miles on miles off. He thinks he will find an ancient edifice over it, or some other conspicuous adjunct. Nothing of the kind - he has been lured
all that distance over rock and bog to see a tiny
spring bubbling out of the rock, such as he may see
hundreds of in a tolerable walk any day. Yet, if
he search in old topographical authorities, he will
find that the little well has ever been an important
feature of the district - that, century after century,
it has been unforgotten; and, with diligence, he
may perhaps trace it to some incident in the life of
the saint, dead more than 1200 years ago, whose
name it bears. Highlanders still make pilgrimages
to drink the waters of such fountains, which they
judiciously mix with the other aqua to which they
are attached. They sometimes mimic the spirit of
the old pilgrimage, by leaving behind theml an offering at the fountain. I have seen such offerings bythe brink of remote Highland springs. The market.
value of them would not afford an alarming esti



390        BOOKt-CLUB LITERATURE.
mate of the intensity of the superstition still lingering in this form in the land. The logic of the depositors probably suggests, that the spiritual guardians of the fountain, though amenable to flattery
and propitiation by gift, are not really well informed
about the market value of worldly chattels, and are
easily put off with rubbish.
A historical inquiry into the worship or consecration of wells and other waters would be interesting. In countries near the tropics, where sandy
deserts prevail, a well must ever have been a thing
of momentous importance; and we find among the
tribes of Israel the digging down a well spoken of
as the climax of reckless, heartless, and awful destructiveness. To find, however, how in watery
Ireland and Scotland a mere driblet of the element
so generally abounding should have been an object
of veneration for centuries, we must look to something beyond physical wants and their supply.
The principal cause of the sanctification of springs
must, of course, be explained by the first of Christian ordinances.  The spring close by the dwelling
or cell of the saint  the spring on account of which
he probably selected the centre of his mission-had
not only washed the forefathers of the district firom
the stain of primeval heathenism, but had applied
the visible sign by which all, from generation to
generation, had been admitted into the bosom of
the Church.  This might seem to afford a cause
sufficient in itself for the effect, yet it appears to
have been aided by other causes more recondite and




THE  EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS.    391
mysterious. Notwithstanding all the trash talked
about Druids and other persons of this kind, we
know extremely little of the heathenism of the
British Isles. The little that we do know is learned
from the meagre notices which the biographers of
the saints have furnished of that which the saints
superseded. It is not their function to commemorate the abominations of heathenism; they would
rather bury it in eternal oblivion —_prermat nox alta
- but they cannot entirely tell the triumphs of
their spiritual heroes without some reference, however faint, to the conquered enemies.
The earliest recorded conflicts between the new
and the old creed are connected with fountains. In
one page of the Life of Columba we find the saint,
on a child being brought to him for baptism, in a
desert place where no water was, striking the rock
like Moses, and drawing forth a rill, which remained
in perennial existence -a fountain surrounded by a
special sanctity. In the next page he deals with a
well in the hands of the Magi. They had put a
demon of theirs into it to such effect, that any unfortunate person washing himself in the well or
drinking of its water, was forthwith stricken with
paralysis, or leprosy, or blindness of an eye, or some
other corporeal calamity. The malignant powers
with which they had inspired this formidable well
spread far around the fear of the Magi, and consequently their influence. But the Christian missionaries were to show a power of a different kindcl- a
power of beneficence, excelling and destroying the




392        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
power of malignity. The process adopted is fully
described. The saint, after a suitable invocation,
washed his hands and feet in the water, and then
drank of it with his disciples. The Magi looked on
with a malignant smile to see the accursed well produce its usual effect; but the saint and his followers
came away uninjured: the demon was driven out
of the well, and it became ever afterwards a holy
fountain, curing many of their infirmities. Another
miracle, bearing against the Magi, introduces us to
one of their number by name, and gives a little of
his domestic history. His name is Broichan, and
he is tutor to Brud, king of the Picts, with whom
he dwells on the banks of the Ness. It might have
relieved the mind of the historical inquirer to be
told that Brud built for himself the remarkable
vitrified fort of Craig-Phadric, which rises high
above the Ness, and to be informed of the manner
in which its calcined rampart was constructed; but
nothing is said on the subject, and Craig-Phadric
stands on its own isolated merits, still to be guessed
at, without one tangible word out of record or history to help any theory about its object or construction home to a conclusion. One is free, however,
to imagine Brud, the heathen king of the Picts,
living on the scarped top of the hill, in a lodging
of wattled or wooden houses, surrounded by a rampart of stones fused by fire, as the only cement then
known. Such we may suppose to have been the
domus regia," whence the saint walked out in a
very bad humor to the river Ness, from the pebbles




THE EARL Y NORTHERN SAIN7TS.   393
of which he selected one white stone, to be turned
to an important use. Broichan, the Magus, had in
his possession a female slave from Ireland. Columba, who seems to have held with him such intercourse as a missionary to the Choctaws might have
with a great medicine-man, desired that the Magus
should manumit the woman, for what reason we
are not distinctly told; but it is easy to suppose
strong grounds for intervention when a Christian
missionary finds a woman, of his own country and
creed, the slave of a heathen priest. Columba's
request was refused. Losing patience, he had resort to threats; and at length; driven to his ultimatum, he denounced death to Broichan if the
slave were not released before his own return to
Ireland. Columba told his disciples to expect two
messengers to come from the king to tell of the
sudden and critical illness of Broichan. The messengers rushed in immediately after to claim the
saint's intervention.  Broichan had been suddenly
stricken by an angel sent for the purpose; and as
if he had been taking his dram in a modern ginpalace, we are told that the drinking-glass, or glass
drinking-vessel, " vitrea bibera," which he was conveying to his lips, was smashed in pieces, and he
himself seized with deadly sickness. Columba sends
the consecrated pebble, with a prescription that the
water in which it is dipped is to be drunk. If,
before he drinks, Broichan releases his slave, he is
to recover; if not, he dies.  The Mlagus complies,
and is saved. The consecrated stone, which had




394        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
the quality of floating in water like a nut, was afterwards, as we are told, preserved in the treasury of
the king of the Picts. It has been lost to the
world, along with the saint's white robe and his
consecrated banner, both of which performed miracles after his death.  But the sanitary influence
attributed to the water in which consecrated stones
have been dipped, is a superstition scarcely yet uprooted in Scotland.
6evrmont  in  ~tonte.
NE of the clubs has lately deviated from
the printing of letterpress, which is the
/   established function of clubs, into picto-'~   rial art.  As it threatens to repeat the
act on a larger scale, it is proposed to take a glance
at the result already afforded, in order that it may
be seen whether it is a failure, or a success opening
up a new vein for club enterprise. In distributing
a set of pictorial prints among its members, the club
in question may be supposed to have invaded the
art-unions; but its course is in another direction,
since its pictures are entirely subservient to archaeology.  The innovator in question is the Spalding
Club, which has already distributed among its adherents a collection of portraits of the sculptured
stones in Scotland, and now proposes to do the
same by the early architectural remains of the




SERMONS IN STONES.            395
North. In giving effect to such a design, it will
produce something like Dugdale's Monasticon and
the great English county histories.
If that which is to be done shall rival that which
the club has achieved, it will be worthy of all honor.
No one can open the book of the sculptured stones
without being almost overwhelmed with astonishment at the reflection that they are not monuments
excavated in Egypt, or Syria, or Mexico, but have
stood before the light of day in village church-yards,
or in market-places, or by waysides throughout our
own country.  As you pass on, the eye becomes
almost tired with the endless succession of grim and
ghastly human figures -  of distorted limbs -  of
preternatural beasts, birds, and fishes —of dragons, centaurs, and intertwined snakes - of uncouth
vehicles, and warlike instruments, and mystic-looking symbols - of chains of interlaced knots and
complex zigzags, all so crowding on each other that
the tired eye feels as if it had run through a procession of temptations of St. Anthony or Faust
Sabbaths.  When this field of investigation and
speculation is surveyed in all its affluence, one is
not surprised to find that it has been taken in hand
by a race of bold guessers, who, by the skilful appliance of a jingling jargon of Asiatic, Celtic, and
classical phraseology, make nonsense sound like
learning too deep to be fathomed. So, while Rusticus will point out to you "the auld-fashioned standin' stane " - on which he tells you that there are
plain to be seen a cocked hat, a pair of spectacles, a




396        BOO00-CLUB LITERATURE.
comb, a looking-glass, a sow with a long snout, and
a man driving a gig, - Mr. Urban will describe to
you "a hieroglyphed monolith" in the terms following: -
"The Buddhist triad is conspicuously symbolized
by what the peasantry call a pair of spectacles. It
consists of two circles, of which the one, having its
radius 1t inch wider than the other, is evidently
Buddha, the spiritual or divine intellectual essence
of the world, or the efficient underived source of
all; the other is Dharma, the material essence of
the world - the plastic derivative cause.  The ligamen connecting them together completes the sacred
triad, with the Sangha derived from and composed
of the two others. Here, therefore, is symbolized
the collective energy of spirit and matter in the
state of action, or the embryotic creation, the type
and sum of all specific forms, spontaneously evolved
from the union of Buddha and Dharma. The crescent, likened by the vulgar-minded peasantry to a
cocked hat, is the embodiment of the all-pervading
celestial influence; and the decorated sceptres or
sacred wands of office, laid across it at the mystic
angle of forty-five degrees, represent the comprehensive discipline and cosmopolite authority of the
conquering Sarsaswete. The figure of the elephant
- undoubted evidence of the Oriental origin of this
monoglyph - represents the embryo of organized
matter; while in the chariot of the sun the neverdying Inis na Bhfiodhlhadth threads the sacred labyrinth, waving a branch of the Mimosa serisha,




SERMONS I;N STONES.           397
which has been dipped in a sacred river, and dried
beneath the influence of Osiris.  The figures called
a comb and a looking-glass are the lingal emblems
of the sacred Phallic worship.  The whole hierograph thus combines, in an extremely simple and
instructive unity, the symbolization of Apis, Osiris,
Uplion, and Isis, Phallos, Pater 2Ither, and Mater
Terra, Lingam and Yoni, Vishnu, Brama, and Sarsaswete, with their Salktes, Yang and Yiri, Padwadevi, Viltzli Pultzli, Baal, Dhanandarah, Sulivahna
and Mumbo Jumbo."
The honest transcripts in the club book clear
away a great deal of that unknown which is so
convertible into the magnificent. It was extremely
perplexing to understand that the elephant was profusely represented upon memorials familiar to the
eyes of the inhabitants of Scotland, at a period, if
we might credit some theories, anterior to the time
when Roman soldiers were appalled in the Punic
war by the sudden apparition of unknown animals
of monstrous size and preternatural strength. The
whole flood of Oriental theory was let loose by this
evidence of familiarity with the usages of Hindostan.  But it is pretty evident, when we inspect
him closely, that the animal, though a strange beast
of some peculiar conventional type, is no elephant.
That spiral winding up of his snout, which passed
for a trunk, is a characteristic refuge of embryo
art, repeated upon other parts of the animal. It
is necessitated by the difficulty which a primitive
artist feels in bringing out the form of an extremity,




398         BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
whatever it may be -snout, horn, or hoof.  He
finds that the easiest termination he can make is
a whirl, and he makes it accordingly. Thus the
noses, the tails, the feet of the characteristic monster of the sculptured stones all end in a whirl, as
the final letter of an accomplished and dashing penman ends in a flourish. The same difficulty is met
in repeated instances on these stones by another ingenious resource.  Animals are united or twined
together by noses or tails, to enable the artist to
escape the difficulty of executing the extremities of
each separately.
There is a propensity to believe that whatever is
old must have something holy and mysterious about
it. It is difficult to suppose that, in making an ornament, men who would be so venerable, were they
alive now, as our ancestors, can have been in the
slightest degree affected by the pomps and vanities
of this wicked world. Hence there is never a quaint
Gothic decoration, floral or animal, but it must be
symbolic of some great mystery. So the reticulated
and geometrical tracery on the sculptured stones
has been invested with mythic attributes, under
such names as " the Runic Knot."  It has been
counted symbolical of a mysterious worship or
creed, and has been associated with Druids and
other respectable, but not very palpable, personages.1
1 It would not be difficult to trace a resemblance between
some of the exceedingly elaborate sculpture of the New Zealanders and that of the sculptured stones, especially in the instance of the very handsome country-house of the chief Rangi



SERMONS IN STONES.                399
Good theories are such a rarity in the antiquarian world, that it is a luxury to find one which,
in reference to this sort of decoration, merits that
praise.  The buildings, both ecclesiastical and civil,
of the early Christians of the North were, as we
have seen, made of wattles or wicker-ware.  The
skill, therefore, of the architectural decorator took
the direction of the variations in basket-work.  We
know that in the Gothic age those forms which were
found the most endurable and graceful in which
stone could be placed upon stone, became also the
ruling forms which guided the carver and the painter; so that all wood-work, metal-work, seal-cutting,
illumination of books, and the like, repeated the
ornaments of Gothic architecture.  It would only,
then, be a prototype of an established phenomenon
were it to be found that the sculptor of an earlier
age adopted the decorations developed by the skilful platting of withes or wattles; and accordingly,
this is just the character of the platted ornaments
so prevalent on the sculptured stones.l But, however these may have been suggested, they show the
haetita, represented in Mr. Angas's New Zealanders Illustrated.
Its name, by the way, in the native Maori, is Kai Tangata, or
Eat-man House- so called, doubtless, in commemoration of the
many jolly feasts held in it on missionaries, and others coming
within Wordsworth's description of' A being not too wise and good
For human nature's daily food."
1 See "An Attempt to Explain the Origin and Meaning of
the Early Interlaced Ornamentation found on the Ancient
Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man,
by Gilbert J. French of Bolton." Privately printed.




400        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
work of the undoubted artist, and furnish, as the
advertisements say, "a varied assortment of the
most elegant and attractive patterns."
Every one who in future attempts to unravel the
mystery of these primitive sculptures must not only
in gratitude but in common justice pay homage to
the services of Mr. John Stuart, the secretary of
the Antiquaries' Society of Scotland, to whose
learning and zeal he owes the collective means of
examining them. It will interest many to know
that Mr. Stuart has been at work again, and has a
second collection of transcripts, in some respects
even more instructive than the first. These will
show, for instance, the point of junction between
the sculptures of the East and of the West, which,
in their extreme special features, are widely unlike
each other.
In the mean time, as the reader is perhaps tired
of all this talk about books, and I would fain part
with him in good humor, I venture to take him on
an imaginary ramble in the wilds of Argyleshire, in
search of specimens of ancient native sculpture, that
he may have an opportunity of noticing how much
has yet to be gleaned off this stony field. So we
are off together, on a fresh summer morning, along
the banks of the Crinan Canal, until we reach the
road which turns southward to Loch Swin and
Taivalich. After ascending so far, we strike off by
a scarcely discernible track, and climb upwards
among the curiously broken mountains of South
Knapdale. When we are high enough up we look




SERMONS IN STONES.              401
on the other side of the first ridge, and see the
brown heather dappled with tiny lakes, looking like
molten silver dropped into their hollows; while far
below, one of the countless branches of Loch Swin
winds through a narrow inlet, among rocks cushioned to the water's edge with deep green foliage.
We are not to descend to the region of lake and
woodland, betrayed by this glimpse, but to keep the
wilder upland; and at last, in a secluded hollow
near the small tarn called Lochcolissor, we reach
a deserted village — a collection of roofless stone
houses, looking, if one judged from mere externals,
as if they might in their day have given shelter to
Columba or Oran. In the centre of this group of
domestic ruins is an affluent fountain of the clearest
water. Standing over it is the object of our search
-a  tall, gray, deeply-lichened stone.  At first it
seems amorphous, as geologists say; but a closer
view discloses on the one side a cross incised, on
the other a network of floral decorations in relief.
To trace these in their completeness, it would be
necessary to accomplish the not easy task of removing the coating of lichen; and, by the way, if
adepts in the cryptogamic department of botany
shall succeed in finding a test of the precise age of
those lichens, which they believe they have proved
to be the growth of centuries, a key of the most
valuable kind will be obtained for discovering the
age of stone monuments.l
1 Any one who desires to see the extent to which science can
find employment in this arid-looking corner of organic life, may
26




402        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
Turn now in another direction.  At the head of
Loch Fyne, near Dunderar, the grim  tower of the
Macnaughtons - which, from some decorations on
it, looks hugely like as if it had been built in the
seventeenth century with the stones of an old
church- we find a tuft of trees with a dike round
it, called Kilmorich.  It is a graveyard evidently,
though it may not have been recently opened; the
surface is uneven, and several rough stones, which
may have been placed there at any time, stick
through the earth.  These, after a deliberate inspection, are found to have nothing of a sculptural
character.  But a small piece of rounded stone appears above the grass, and a little grubbing discloses
a font, faintly decorated with some primitive fluting,
on which a stone-mason would look with much
scorn; and a scratching of a galley, the symbol of
the Argyll family, or some other of the races descended from ancient sea-kings. This gives encouragement, and a sharper glance around betrays a
singular-looking rounded headstone, with two crescent-shaped holes.  There are corresponding holes
on the portion under the sod, which thus completes
the rounded head of an ancient Scoto-Irish cross.
The next point is to find the shaft - it lies not far
off, deep in the turf. And when we take the grass
and moss from its face, it discloses some extremely
look at a "Memoir on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Filamentous, Fruticulose, and Foliaceous Lichens," by Dr. William
Lauder Lyndsay, in the 22d volume of the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh.




SERMONS IN STONES.              403
curious quadrilateral decorations, quite peculiar, and
not in conformity with any type of form which
would enable its date to be guessed at within a century or two of the reality.
Passing through the rich woods of Ardkinglas, in
a few miles we reach the burying-ground, called of
old Kilmnaglas, but now the well-kept churchyard,
in which stands the modern church of Strachur.
There are many who will remember the white
house glimmering through the trees, and lament
that memory is now all that it contains for them.
Here are several fine specimens of sculpture. Some
stones, not of the oldest type, have the crossed
sword, symbolical alike of the warrior character of
the dead and the religion of peace in which he rests.
There is one with a figure in full chain-armor; and
others, again, of an older date, ornamented with the
geometric reticulations already discussed. Descending a few miles farther, in the small fertile delta of
the Lachlan, and overshadowed almost by the old
square castle of the M'Lachlans, there is a bushy
inclosure which may be identified as the old burialplace of Kilmory. A large block of hewn stone,
with a square hole in it, sets one in search of the
cross of which it was the socket. This is found in
the grass, sadly mutilated, but can be recognized by
the stumps of the branches which once exfoliated
into its circular head. Beside it lies a fiat stone,
on which a sword is surrounded by graceful floral
sculpture.
Let us cross over again to the valley perforated




404        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
by Loch Crinan.  Northward of the canal there
is a remarkable alluvial district, through which,
although it seems crowded with steep mountain
summits, we can travel over many a mile of flat
turf.  From this soil the hills and rocks rise with
extreme abruptness, in ridges at the border of the
plain, and in isolated peaks here and there throughout its flat alluvial surface.  Conspicuous, in a minor degree, is a great barrow like a pyramid, with
a chamber roofed with long stones in its centre.
Near it is one of those circles of rough stones called
Druidical, and farther on there is another, and then
another; some of them tall pillars, others merely
peeping above ground. They literally people the
plain. This must have been a busy neighborhood,
whatever sort of work it may have been that went
on around these untooled fragments of the living
rock, which have so distracted our antiquaries in
later centuries.  If they were the means or the
object of any kind of heathen worship, then the
existence close beside them of the vestiges of early
Christianity may be set down as an illustration of
the well-known historical opinion, that the first
Christian missionaries, instead of breaking the idols
and reviling the superstitions of those whom they
went to convert, professed to bring a new sanctity
to their sacred places, and endeavored to turn their
impure faith, with the least possible violence, into
the path of purity.
Our next trial is at Kilmichael, about three miles
from  Loch Gilp.  The churchyard is extremely




SERMONS IN STONES.           405
fruitful in sculptured stones of various kinds -
some floral, others geometrical, with wild beasts,
monsters, and human figures. One of them was
pointed out as the tomb of a member of the house
of Campbell, who bore the name of Thomas, and
was a great bard, and lived in London and other
great cities - Thomas Campbell, in short. It seems
to be true that his fathers were buried in Kilmichae.l
churchyard, but my informant seemed to struggle
with an idea that the stone covered with the sculpture of a far past century had been really raised
to his honor. The next generation will probably
assert this as a fact.  The genesis of such traditions is curious.  The stone called Rob Roy's
tomb, which lies beside an ancient font in the
churchyard of Balquhidder, is a sculptured stone
raised for some one who had probably died in
wealth and honor hundreds of years before Rob
stole cattle.
By a slight ascent westward of the alluvial plain
we reach Kilmartin, a village with a large modern
church. Its graveyard is graced with many sculptured stones —twenty-five may be counted, conspicuous for their rich carving and excellent preservation.  On one or two of the latest in date,
there are knightly figures clad in chain-mail. A
local antiquary could probably trace these home to
some worshipful families in the neighborhood, but
there are others beyond the infancy of the oldest
authentic pedigrees. While the stones in the eastern counties are all of extremely remote antiquity,




406        BOOK-CLUB LITERATURE.
offering no link of connection with later times, these
Highland specimens seem to carry their peculiarities
with modified variations through several centuries
into times comparatively late. There are among
them stones bearing some types of extreme antiquity, and others which undoubtedly proclaim themselves as no older than the fifteenth or sixteenth
centuries. It is sometimes a difficult task, in judging of antiquities, to make a sufficient allowance for
the spirit of imitation. There is nothing certainly
more natural than that a new tombstone should be
made after the fashion of time-honored monuments,
the pride of the graveyard in which it is to be
placed. In Kilmartin there are two decided imitations of the more ancient class of the western
sculptured stones. Though the symbols and decorations which they bear are of ancient outline, the
heavy, and at the same time accurate and workmanlike, way in which they are cut, would mark
them indubitably as modern, even if the one did
not bear the date of 1707, and the other of 1711.
But the sun is dropping behind Ben Cruachan
and the Jura hills. The time of holiday reading
and holiday rambling has come to its end; and a
voice calls the wanderer back to more sedate and
methodical pursuits.




INDEX.
Aberdeen laird's wife, story of, 8, 9.   man printer's wife, 64; ValaAccession, right of, 40.             rian Flavignvy's controversy for
ADAMIS, Dr. Francis, publication    a dropped letter in the rebuke
of his translation of the works    respecting the mote in thy brothof Paul of lEgina, 260.            er's eye, 64; generally printed
Advertisements, 157-160; speci-    with more than average care,
mens of, 161.                      69.
" A-,fishing,' criticism  on the use  Bibliognoste, defined, 4, note.
of this idiom, 386, note.        Bibliographe, defined, 4, note.
Ambrosian Library, beginning of, Biblioinanze. defined, 4, note.
208.                             Bibliophile, defined, 4, note.
American History, works on, print- Bibliothique bleue, story connected
ed and distributed as gifts, 302,   with, 45, 46.
note; a special department of Bodleian Library, beginning  of,
the book-trade, 303.               209.
Americans, their abuse of "nig- BotIuN, Edmond, the licenser, 217.
gels," 330, and note.           BOLLANDUS, 349.
ANGELO IMAi, discovery of lost In- Books, entire fac-similes made of
stitute of Gaius, 317.             old, 24; one perfect made friom
Anglo-Saxon race, origin of the    several imperfect, 24, 25; exname, 117, note.                   penditure of money in, 96-103;
Annotating books, practice of, 193,   curious and amusing from their
194.                               excessive badness, 154: number
Armnzcgh, description of the cover   published annually, 204, note;
of the book of, 380.               not good fuel, 219; story of a
ATTICUS, a publisher, 103, note.     house on fire saved by the folio
Auctioneers, 56-60.                  Corpus Juris and the Statutes
Auction rooms, 56-60, 82.            at Large, 220; libraries at AlexAuchinleclc Press, issues of, 284,   andria, 220; decay of, from nat286.                               ural causes, 221; the fathers and
schoolmen, 221; the civilians
Bailigl; story of, who had been    and canonists of Leyden and
compelled to swallow  a writ,    Amsterdam, 221; authors of the
140, note.                        present day, 222.
BAILLET, Adrien, 237.              Book-binders, eminent, 25; manBEST, Mr. Justice, story of a refer-    ner of stamping their names, 25.
ence to, in an index, 137.      Book-binzding, ancient costly style,
BETHUNE, Rev. Dr., his Waltonian    27.
library, 80.                    Book-caterer, (the,) 27-29.
Bible, errors of the press in edi- Book clubs, structure of, 247-261;
tions of, 64; story of the Ger-   restricted to the promulgation




408                          INVDEX.
of works of dead authors, 253;  Copyriyht Act at Stationers' tIall,
the Camden, 304; the Chetham,    203.
304; the, Surtees, 305; the Mait-  Courtesy among men of letters in
land, 305; the Spalding, 0305;   the use of books, 49, note; 54,
the Irish  Archmeological, 305;   note.
the Elfriic, 305; the Shakespeare,  Criminal Trials, 149; illustrated
305; the Percy, 305; the Hak-    151.
luyt, 305; the Rae Society, 306;  CUNINIGHACIt'S  Latin History of
the Parker Society, 306; "The    Britain, extract from, 65, note.
Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology," 306; obligations of Brit-  " Dame  aux  CamQlias,"  extract
ish history to, 319.               from, 8, note.
Book Hunter, (the,) selection of DIBI IN, passage from his Bibliotitle of, 1, 4.                    mania, 16; burning the woodBOSWELL, Sir Alexander, 284; his   cuts of the Bibliographical DeAuchinleck Press, 285, 286; his   canmeron, 51; character of his
son01s, 287; " Skeldon Haulghs,   books, 83, and note; his account
or the Sow is Flitted," 288.       of the dinner-party at the table
BOYLE, Sir Roche, saying attrib-    of " Hortensius," 262, 263; meruted to, of being in two places    its of his " Literary Companat once "like a bird," 137, note,   ion," 276, 277, note.
148, note.                      Dibdinism, defined, 276.
BREWER, Inchrule, 22.
B,aINDLFIY, anecdote of, 171.      Ecclesiologist (the), 313.
British Museum, beginning of, 208. Editio princeps, 169, 170.
BROWNE, Sir Thomas, passages  Editors of club-books, 300, 301,
selected from, "The Esthetics    308, 315; of " De Antiquis Legiof Toleration," 128; " Disputa-    bus Liber," 308.
tion," 130; " The Harmony of EDWAIRDS, Edward, his memoirs
Nature," 131; "' The Justifica-    of libraries, 187, note.
tion of Martyrdom," 133; "Ash-  Elzevir classics, 57; have dimines of the Utnknown Dead," 134.   ished in value, 57, note.
Bull, definition of, 147.          ERASMIIUS, error of the press in his
BURTON, description of his library    " Vidua Christiana," 64, note.
and library building, 190.
BUTLER, General, his orders and  FFaRRIER'S  " Bibliomania,"  exofficial correspondence, 107, note.   tract firom, 79, note.'Fiat justitia-ruat celum," 162,
CXsAR, Brunet's  description of   note.
copy of the 1635 Elzevir in the  FISTnER, Rev. John, Bishop of
Imperial Library at Paris, 23,   Rochester, his attempt to found
note; this edition known by a    a university library, 214.
misprint, 63.                    Flower-Fanciers.  See Tulip-Col"Candian vessel " misprinted " Ca-   lectors.
nadian vessel," 71, 72.          French Causes Cdl6bres, 150.
CARFRAE, anecdote of, 58.          French novel, anecdote in, 9, note.
Church Architecture, early British, 313.                        Gaius, Institute of, discovery of
CLEMENT, David, his rules as to   lost, by Angelo Mal, 317.
the rarity of a book, 231.       "Game of Chess," (the,) 1474, first
COMBE  on  the Constitution  of   book printed in England, purMan, anecdote of this book, 207,   chase and sale of, 229, 230.
note.                            Genealogist, (the,) 310-313.
Compositors, 67-69.                Genealogy, story of a witness called
"Consummate," criticism  on the    to prove a poilt of, 310, note.
use of the word, 106, note.      General History of Ireland, (the,)




INDEX.                           409
by Jeffrey Keating, 355; ex- Larceny by book collectors, 46;
tracts fiom, 355-360.              description of, by Scott. 47, 48.
Gordonstoun library, 91.          "Large paper" copies, difference
Grangerite, (the,) 74; the way de-    between, and "tall" copies, 78,
scribed in which he would pro-    79; caution against gathering,
ceed to illustrate a verse, 76.    80, note.
Greek nomenclature, 1-4.          Latin Law Maxims, specimens of
translations of, 142, note.
lHagiology, writers on, 349.       Lamuentian Library, 209.
Harvard Library, burning of, 198. Law Books and Reports, 137.
HAZLEWOOD, Joseph, 267; his  "Lay Gents," 140 and note.
classification of his books, 268; Legal technicalities, 140.
his history of the Roxburghe  Library of Anglo-Catholic TheolClub, 269-272; specimen of his    ogy, (the,) 306.
style, 272, note; description of "Libri comesti," 217, note.
his copy of "' Ancient and Criti- Literary forgeries, 296.
cal Essays upon English Poets  Literary future of the New World,
and Poesy," 269, notes.            199.
Heber's Library, origin of, 93; ex- Long Parliament, notes of the protent of, 94, 95.                   ceedings of, by Sir Ralph VerHouse and window duties, effect   ney, 322.
of on the dispersal or destruc-  Lowndes' Bibliographer's Mlanual,
tion of books, 202.                Bohn's edition, mistake in, as
IUMF,, Alexander, specimens from     regards The Federalist, 74, note.
his Hymns or Sacred Songs, 318, Lycanthropy, 276.
note.
Macaronics, specimen of, 290, 291.
imperial Library of Paris, foun- Magliabecchi, stories of, 236; his
dation of, 215.                    origin, 237.
"Jnaugurate," criticism on the use  MAGOON, Rev. Dr., his library,
of the word, 106, note.            195.
Institaetes, extract from, as to prop- MAaGus Lucullus, 42-45.
erty acquired by the right of MEADOWBANRI, Archdeacon, 12accession, 40, note.               17, 25.
Irish Vampire, (the,) account of, "M len of the Time," (the,) a book
52-55.                             full of blunders, 74, note.
Irishl  Archaeological book-club, MENZIES, his library, 197, note.
305.                            Monarchies of Europe, State and
Irish bulls, 136, 158.               and Political Etiquette of, 85,
note.
JOLLY, Bishop Robert, 241.         " Aorning Chronicle," London, erJolly Club, (the,) 241, 243.         ror of the press in, 64, note.
JONES, Sir William, his reading
Cicero, 108.                     "Naming a member," story of Mr.
JUNOT, his vellum  library, 61;    Onslow, 135.
sale of his copy of the Didot NoY, Attorney-General, 126, 127.
Horace, of 1799, 62.
HOELRICHS, John Charles Conrad,
Kane and Carriages, story of, 144,   his Dissertation concerning the
note.                              Fates of Libraries and Books,
KEESE, John, tribute to, 58, note;    217.
stories of, 58, 59, note.        OXFORD, Bishop of, odd accident
KENT, Judge, his library, 192.       happening by the dropping of a
line or two out of " the forme,"
LAMB, Charles, his Index Expur-   in the Life of "The Men of the
gatorius, 153, note.               Time," 73.




410                          INDEX.
PAPAVERIUs,ThOmas,   29-42. And  School-books, ancient, value  of,
see Prefatory Note to this edi-   224.
tion.                            Scotch and English law, variations
Printer's blunders, their use in    between, 142.
detecting plagiarisms, 70, note.  SCOTT, Sir Walter, an inaccurate
Poetry, sonretimes improved by    writer, 83, note; his picture of
errors of the press, 70.           himself at the time of the RoxPrinting. Presses, private, 285.     burghe sale, 165; letter to RobPrivate Libraries of New  York    ert Pitcairn, respecting the es(The), by Dr. Wynne, 181; sin-   tablishing of a book-club, 281;
gular social condition revealed    song to the Bannatyners, 281,
by the publication of, 182, and    282; prints the trial of two Highnote.                              landers for murder, for the club,
PRYNXYE'S " Histrio Mastyx," 126.   282.
Self- denunciations, 5.
Quaker  collector of paintings, Seneca, extract from  "De Transtory of, 98.                      quillitate," 115, note.
Sermons in Stones, 394.
Religious and political intolerance, SAIAKESPEARE, error in citation
an enemy to literature, 217.      from corrected, 47, note; amendReprints, 206, 207.                  ed readings of, 67, 68, note; deROBERT of Bury, Bishop of Dur-   scription of an illustrated folio
ham, 209; extracts from  his   copy of, 187, note; a member of
"Philobiblion," 210, 212, note;   the Mermaid, 246.
his visit to Paris, 211; his policy  Shakespearian criticism, 66.
of bringing around him members  SAIART, Fitzpatrick, 17-22, 28.
of the mendldicantorders, 212; his  Society of Friends, effect on the
injunctions as to  the proper    passions of restraint exercised
treatment of manuscripts and    by, 7, note.
books, 227, note.                Societies, nomenclature of, 244.
ROBERTsON, Joseph, 301.            Spalding Club, 305; distributed a
ROGERS' "Italy" with Turner's,    collection of portraits of the
etc., Illustrations, error which    sculptured stones in Scotland,
affords assistance in the selection    394.
of a copy, 63, note.             SPALDINGG, John, 323; his "Me" Rout upon Rout, or the Rabblers    morials of the Troubles in ScotRabbled," refusal of owner to   land  and England, 323.
lend a copy of, 53, 54.          SPENCER, Earl, purchase of the
Roxburghe Club, origin of, 262-    Caxtons at the Roxburghe sale
264; founded on the principle    by, 121.
that each member should print Spirit of Despotism, by Vicesia volume, 302; first publications    mus Knox, anecdote of, 207,
of, 274, 275; Havelok the Dane,   note.
275; William and the Wer Wolf, Spottiswoode  Society, origin  of,
276; the principle of sustaining    243.
the value of a book by limiting  " Star Papers," passage quoted
the impression, 278.               from, 165.
Roxburghe, Duke of, origin of his  State Trials, (the,) 149.
bibliornania, 84, 87.            Statutes, funny things in, 144-149.
Roxbeurghe library, sale of, 84, 87-  " Step," a rhyme to, 292, note.
89; the Venetian Boccaccio, 89. Student life, anecdote  of, 120,
Noxburyhe toasts, Hazlewood's list,   note.
264, note.                       " Superinduce," criticism  on the
Rubricists, 62.                      use of the word, 106, note.
SURTEES, Robert, anecdotes of
Saints, the Early Northern, 346.     289-293; imposition on Sir Wal



INDEX.                           411
ter Scott of a spurious ballad,   on the Types, 123; Aristotle's
293-298.                           Metaphysics, 124; specimen of
a lengthy title-page, 125, note.
"Thanatopsis," absurdity concerning in " The MIen of the Time,"  " Uncut," meaning of, 79, note.
74, note.
TTHomIsoN, anecdote of in presen-  Valarian Flavigny.  See Bible.
tation copy of " Winter" to his  Venetian Boccaccio.  See Roxuncle, 26.                         burghe Library.
THomIsoN, Rev. William, anecdote
of, 65, note.                    Wars and revolutions, effect of
THoimsoN, Thomas, 301.               on libraries, 218; the French
"Tongs,"  pronunciation  of the    libraries in the time of Robeword, 340, note.                   spierre, 219.
Trial of two Highlanders for mur-  Waltoneians, (the,) 81, note.
der, 282, 283.                   TVfe of a book-lover, story of, 95,
Tulip-collectors, purchasing a du-    note.
plicate tuber for the purpose of WILSON, Davie, 169.
destroying it, 50, 51.          WODRow, Robert, 331; his " AnTusculan  Questions, criticism  on,   alecta," 334; story told by his
108, note.                         wife, 336, 377.
Title-pacles, often deceptive, 122;
anecdote of a farmer purchasing  "Y," use of, for " th," 265, note,
at auction a copy of MacEwen    266, note.