Part 14
I recall one day several years ago when I visited the library of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. His grandson, Mr. T. FitzRoy Fenwick, and I were looking over the precious volumes, and we talked of Sir Thomas’s ardent love of manuscripts. For more than fifty years he had been the world’s greatest gatherer of everything written by the hand of man. His knowledge was equal to his love, and he succeeded in forming an unrivaled library of manuscripts, which included some of the greatest specimens in existence. He did not confine himself to Continental examples alone, but was the first great collector of manuscripts relating to America. Sir Thomas Phillipps was the patron not only of Lord Kingsborough, whose researches on Mexico are well known, but of George Catlin, who depicted so graphically the life of the American Indian. Mr. Fenwick, who inherited from his grandfather his appreciation and love of fine things, and who possesses an almost unequaled knowledge of old manuscripts, asked me if I had ever seen a manuscript containing Anglo-Saxon writing. I said that I had not, and he thereupon produced the Four Gospels, an English manuscript written in West Anglia in the time of King Alfred, A.D. 850-900, which contained splendid full-page illustrations of an unusual type. There upon the margins were characters in Anglo-Saxon, written long before the Conqueror came to the shores of Britain.
Nothing, however, surprises me at Thirlestaine House. One day Mr. Fenwick showed me the Liesborn Gospels, a superb manuscript made in the ninth century for King Widekind, the only successful opponent of Charlemagne. It was in its old binding of carved wood, and is one of the few very early manuscripts in existence giving the name of the scribe who wrote it.
He also showed to me the famous French Historiated Bible of the fourteenth century, in two magnificent volumes, which contained almost a hundred illustrations, quite in the modern manner, more like William Blake than an artist of old Touraine. I now have these three precious Biblical manuscripts, and I doubt whether there is a nobler assemblage in existence.
To my mind the most inspiringly beautiful and important early Hebrew manuscript of the Bible is that in the remarkable collection of Mr. David Sassoon, of London. It should be reproduced in facsimile so that all students here and abroad might study not only its unique text but its glorious illustrations as well.
One of the great discoveries in the history of these early Bibles occurred right here at our place in New York, seven years ago. Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell, the great student of manuscripts, called upon me, and I showed him six pictures from the Bible and said that they were by a Spanish artist of the thirteenth century.
He looked at them for a moment and said, “No, they’re English!” I could scarcely believe him, although no one knows more about manuscripts than he. “Let me take them to my hotel and study them. I think they are the work of the earliest known English illuminator, W. de Brailes.”
He took them with him. If they were English they would be immensely valuable--worth far more than I, old Captain Kidd, asked for them. You bet I awaited anxiously his return.
Finally he showed up one day, and said, “The only trouble with you, Doctor Rosenbach, is that you do not use the eyes God gave you.” Lo and behold, he pointed to the halo on one of the saints, and there in neat characters were the magic words: “W. de Brail(es) me f(e)cit.” It was one of the greatest attributions ever made by a scholar, and they were, now beyond even the shadow of a doubt, the work of the very artist he had named. According to Mr. Eric G. Millar: “There has never been a more triumphant vindication of connoisseurship.” These six drawings are now in England in the collection of Mr. A. Chester Beatty, who has one of the choicest libraries of Oriental and European manuscripts. Every year when I go to England I renew, through the kind offices of Mr. Beatty, my acquaintance with the spirit of that doughty old illuminator, W. de Brailes.
Very few forgers have had the courage to try their hands at duplicating Biblical manuscripts. I have always been amazed at the enormous amount of self-confidence a man by the name of Shapira must have had when he offered the British Museum several important-looking manuscript scrolls. They contained the text of the Pentateuch, and were, he claimed, from the very hands of Moses! Of course, every expert and noted scholar who happened to be in London at the time went to see these scrolls, which were placed on exhibition at the Museum. They were scrutinized carefully, admired as works of curiosity, but no one believed for a moment that they were genuine. Any Semitic scholar knows perfectly well that writing for literary purposes was unknown at the time of Moses. Yet even though Shapira had used an alphabet belonging to a much later period in history, his handiwork was decidedly interesting. Finally he was informed that his offerings were considered a fraud. He left England bitterly disappointed and went to Belgium. Not long after he arrived there the continental newspapers announced that Shapira had committed suicide. Even then, when certain of his victims read the lines, they wrote to the papers protesting that the man could not be dead, and openly accused him of fabrication even in connection with his own demise. Such is fame!
The most interesting experiments in the history of pictorial art were the attempts to produce picture books for the use of the middle and lower classes of Europe in the fifteenth century, most of whom could not read. The few specimens of the Block Books, as they are called, extant to-day, indicate they were made up of single leaves printed on one side of the paper only. These blocks were all cut by hand from a slab of hardwood, such as that of the pear or apple tree. When the impressions were finally made, the pages were pasted back to back and bound in rough parchment. It is believed by some authorities that the earliest Block Books date from 1440, although others were undoubtedly printed fifteen to thirty years later.
The _Biblia Pauperum_, or the Bible for the Poor, is one of the most interesting examples among the block books. It is composed almost entirely of crude illustrations with doses of text or short explanations and sayings of the Prophets above and below the pictures, much in the manner of the tabloids of our own time. No attempt was made to reproduce the whole Bible or even a complete chapter. It was the portions familiarly known to the people which were set down. Thus the story of St. John--“Apocalypsis S. Joannis”--was one of the favorite subjects, as was Solomon’s “Song of Songs.”
Block books are, of course, among the most desirable and the most difficult to obtain of all the treasures of the bibliophile. Even a single sheet torn from a block book is valuable. I recall vividly, when in England many years ago, my first visit to an old library which contained four perfect block books, all in magnificent condition. The margins were uncut and, in fact, they appeared to be exactly the same as when they left the hands of the unknown printer in the fifteenth century. Year after year I returned to this library especially to see them. Imagine my satisfaction and joy when I was finally rewarded by the owner, who had decided to part with them.
There are only three great collections of block books in this country. One may be seen at the New York Public Library; another, also in New York, in the library founded by the late J. Pierpont Morgan; and the third in the Huntington Library in California.
The very first type-printed book with illustrations was a Latin edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, printed by Albrecht Pfister, of Bamberg, in 1461. There are only two copies known: one in the John Rylands Memorial Library at Manchester, England; the other in the French National Library at Paris.
Savonarola, the Billy Sunday of his day, was quick to see the appeal of block books. He had his own sermons printed and illustrated with woodblock-printed pictures, which he distributed among his followers. It was he who drew the masses to religion at the time when Florentine art was almost at its peak. He converted Botticelli, caused him to destroy all the sensuous secular pictures he painted previous to his conversion, but happily made up for his loss by inspiring him to paint religious subjects. What would I not give to possess the charred remains of the Bible to which Savonarola clung when he died!
There is perhaps a greater lack of knowledge concerning old Bibles than of any other subject pertaining to books. To make matters worse, most people believe they have accumulated many worthwhile facts when all they pick up is some chance misinformation. At least thirty per cent of the 30,000 letters I receive annually are about Bibles or other religious works, which, according to my correspondents, “have always been in the family.” The largest number of letters come from Germany. But among people of all nationalities the hoary idea still prevails that age adds value to a Bible. Some people who are not interested in any book, old or otherwise, become excited the moment they find a Bible more than fifty years old. Clasping it to the family bosom, they often rush to my library, either in New York or Philadelphia, buoyed up by an inflated notion of their treasure’s value, believing they have sighted a rainbow with a pot of real gold at the end.
Almost everyone in the world owns or has owned a Bible. It is the one work which has been translated into every language; it is the world’s best seller, and because of this, edition after edition has appeared in every country. No one knows how many millions of pounds the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have received to date in the revenue which has always flowed into their coffers as a perquisite on printed Bibles. The Bible rests beside one’s bed to-day in hotel rooms throughout the country. The Gideons’ Bible is the only volume the stealing of which is considered a virtue instead of a crime! The Bible is a book which has touched the hearts of us all at one time or another. When it does not appeal as a religious work its fascination is felt in the inexhaustible fund of stories and anecdotes which have never been matched by the contents of any secular book ever written. Such tales as those of Joseph and his brethren, David and Goliath, Solomon and the two mothers, will never be excelled.
A very old Bible is valuable because of its age only if it was printed between the time of the Gutenberg edition, 1455, and the year 1476. Although there were hundreds of editions of the Bible issued in Europe before 1500, only a small portion of them may be considered very valuable to-day. After 1476 Bibles must show certain characteristics to make them sufficiently desirable to the collector’s roving eye. It goes almost without saying that all first editions are worth something.
The first Bible printed in Italy, in France, or in Spain--these are all of great value and rarity as well. The first Bible printed in one of the secular languages, in the old days known as the vulgar tongues, for instance, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Icelandic, Swedish, Slavonic, Bohemian, or Basque, these, too, are valuable. Others are the first printed Bible of Strasburg, issued by Mentelin before 1460; another printed by Eggestyn in 1466; the celebrated R Bible, probably published by Adolf Rusch in 1467 at Strasburg; the Great Bible, a most beautiful specimen of printing, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, 1471; and the Great French Bible, made, oddly enough, in Paris five years later by three Germans: Gering, Kranz, and Friburger. Hebrew being the original language of the Old Testament Scriptures, it is only natural that the first printed in the Hebrew language--Soncino 1488--should be one of the cornerstones of any collection of Bibles.
One of the most glorious productions of the Bible is the Jenson edition, printed in Venice in 1479. I have a superb copy on vellum, with a special page of dedication to Pope Sixtus IV. All Bibles with dedications to or from noted persons immediately become significant in the estimation of the book lover.
Sometime after the printing of the Vulgate version, certain editors, shrewd enough to discern the public mind, offered a Bible complete with three versions. In the centre of the page they printed the Vulgate, while on one side a Hebrew text was printed, and on the other, a Greek.
But it is to the first English printer, William Caxton, that the honor should go for the first printed appearance of any part of the Scriptures in English. Caxton came from Kent, and in his youth went to Bruges and Cologne to learn the trade of printer. He was the first to introduce printing into England and the first to print any works in English. He was a scholar of parts, as well as a printer with fine taste, and himself translated into English many of the works which he later published. In 1483 he issued the _Golden Legend_, which includes lives of Adam, Abraham, Moses, and other characters of the Old and New Testaments. Thus it contains nearly all of the Pentateuch and portions of the Gospels. If this were generally known and appreciated, I feel certain the _Golden Legend_ would approach a price more nearly like that of the Gutenberg Bible. But as the book game is one of magic and alchemy, this may happen unexpectedly any time.
Among the fourteen or fifteen Caxtons in my New York vault, I am happy to say I have a beautiful copy which contains, unmutilated, the account of the murder of Thomas A. Becket, as a friend of mine once wrote it, which has been entirely deleted from most copies.
Of course almost everyone knows that the first complete Bible in the English language was the work of Miles Coverdale. He finished his translation in 1535, and it was printed that same year at Zurich. Although as a work of scholarship it may not rank particularly high,--it is “translated out of Douche and Latyn,” according to the title,--you will find many of Coverdale’s memorable and sonorous phrases preserved in the authorized version in use to-day.
Ten years previous to the appearance of Miles Coverdale’s work, a contemporary of his, William Tyndale, had made a valiant effort to translate and have printed certain portions of the Bible. Perhaps he was inspired by some spiritual force within himself; at any rate he believed he could best serve his fellow countrymen by translating the New Testament into their language. His ambition grew when one day in heated dispute with an eminent churchman of England he was appalled at that worthy’s ignorance of the Scriptures. His vow, made then and there, has triumphantly echoed in the ears of all theological students ever since. “If God spare my life,” said Tyndale, “ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth his plough to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.”
But Tyndale’s radical project naturally needed strong financial and political backing. He went to London, where he believed he had a powerful ally in his friend, Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall. In this he soon found he was mistaken; nor could he find any patron with a sympathetic ear and a sympathetic purse as well. This circumstance was not strange, however, because it was just about this time that the powerful Cardinal Wolsey began to lay plans to prevent the “invasion of England by the Word of God.” Discouraged, Tyndale decided there was little hope of accomplishing his work in his own land, and made up his mind to try his luck abroad, even though it meant exile.
In Hamburg, Tyndale completed his translation of the New Testament into English from the original Greek. He went on to Cologne, where he hoped to find a printer. It is believed that work on the book was then really started, but that the Senate of Cologne grew suddenly enraged and shocked at the thought of so profane a business going on within its gates. An order was issued to Peter Quentel, the printer, to prohibit its continuance, but before it could be carried out Tyndale had fled in panic to Worms. He took with him his beloved translation, and perhaps certain pages of the printed work as well. In Worms, Luther was then at the very height of his popularity. This must have been a relief to Tyndale, to find himself in a place where he would have to undergo no further religious persecution. And so the New Testament was printed for the first time in English in a little German city.
Tyndale’s followers doubtless smuggled it into the home country, because almost immediately this New Testament began to appear in England. It filled the clergy with fury, and Bishop Tunstall, Tyndale’s former friend, even went so far as to have it burned publicly at St. Paul’s Cross in London. It was destroyed in other places as well, before gatherings of ignorant, superstitious, and infuriated people. Indeed, the public burning by the churchmen of Tyndale’s New Testament became a popular if serious pastime. And the destruction of Tyndale’s precious books was a prophetic prelude to his own martyrdom at the stake a few years later.
All the earliest English Bibles are extraordinarily rare and worth almost any amount. It is strange to speak of money in connection with the greatest spiritual work of all time, but as Bibles are the cornerstones of any outstanding collection it follows that they must be bought at a price.
Only a fragment exists of the first edition of Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, from the press of Peter Quentel in Cologne, in 1525. The second edition, printed also on the Continent, by Peter Schöffer at Worms, probably late in 1525, is almost equally rare, as only two imperfect copies survive. I would cheerfully give more than $50,000 for a copy of the first appearance in print of this portion of the English Scriptures. Perhaps some book scout will eventually unearth another. Of the Tyndale Pentateuch, probably printed at Malborow by Hans Lufft in 1530, only three perfect copies have resisted the sharp usages of time. The finest of these is in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
As to the first complete Bible in the English language, translated by Coverdale and printed in 1535, not a single absolutely perfect copy exists. There are two or three almost perfect examples in England, none so good in America. There are, however, copies of this book, more or less defective, in libraries in this country, such as in the collections of Pierpont Morgan and Henry E. Huntington, the New York Public Library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Carl H. Pforzheimer, and A. Edward Newton. This great volume is not of excessive rarity, but of excessive importance. I would risk my chances in this world and the next to obtain a perfect copy.
Of the so-called Great Bible, seven editions were issued within two years, 1539-41. They are all valuable, but not nearly so much so as the earlier English Bibles. Splendid examples of printing, they are much in demand by collectors, especially when perfect.
One of the great monuments of our civilization, the first edition of the Authorized Version, printed in London by Robert Barker in 1611, is in every respect one of the finest things a collector can ever hope to acquire. The influence of this Book upon the world has been simply enormous. There were two editions in 1611, known as the He and She Bible, the He (quite naturally!) being the earlier and more in demand. No stones, fair ladies! The distinction comes from a variant reading in the Book of Ruth, iii, 15. In the first version it reads “He went into the citie,” in the second, the later printing, “She went into the citie.” This change of a single letter makes all the difference in the world to the collector, and he has to pay for it. The first issue is worth several thousands more than the second. This is a rare and momentous thing, a perfect He bringing more than a perfect She! It can only occur in the case of the Bible. I am quite sure that in this even clergymen will agree with me.
The price of the first edition of the Authorized, or King James, Bible, has not been large in the past. The Huth copy sold at auction in 1911 for only £164, or about $820, but the future, I feel sure, will tell another story. Indeed, I think the time when the collector will give $8000 or $10,000 for a really fine copy is hovering dangerously near. It is truly a volume so dear and precious to everyone that it must soon take its place among the stars.
I remember one day when I was visiting the late J. P. Morgan many years ago. We sat and talked in his office in the old building at the corner of Wall and Broad streets, which in those ancient days bore the sign, Drexel, Morgan, and Company. Of course, we vied with each other in a genial way, relating stories of our quests in discovering rare books, of purchases we had made at what we considered the proper prices then, and in general confiding to each other those tales of adventure so dear to the heart of the bookman. We talked about old Bibles, especially those which had belonged to celebrated people. Of these Mr. Morgan already had a remarkable collection. His nephew, Mr. Junius Spencer Morgan, had from the first been a great help to his uncle, with his genuine flair for really fine books and works of art generally, and his uncle often took his advice. The elder Mr. Morgan was a man of great imagination, who enjoyed book collecting as much as anyone I have ever known. Suddenly, during our conversation, his face clouded, and he turned to me and said in a regretful tone, “Doctor, there is one Bible I have missed. The last time I was in London, Quaritch told me about it. He sold it, he said, on his first trip to this country in 1890. It is the great He issue of 1611, and is enriched with the annotations of the translators of the King James version. The explanations of the Holy Text were probably made for the use of Prince Henry. What would I give to have it!”
Now I knew of this Bible, but hadn’t the faintest idea at the moment where it was or who owned it. It had been extended to five volumes and bore on the binding the feathers of the young Prince of Wales. But when I secured the library of Clarence S. Bement, one year later, there it was. What luck! Mr. Morgan, it is unnecessary to state, bought it immediately.
Among the hundreds of Bibles offered to me each year there is one type which blooms eternal. It is the bullet-hole Bible: the Bible which saved grandpa’s life in the Civil War, or the Revolution--as you will. For a time I was shown such a succession of these that my very dreams were haunted by them. Many a night my rest would be broken when whole armies charged me, each soldier wearing a protecting copy of the Holy Scriptures over his heart.
Some people have fondly believed that a tale of sentiment, plus a dash of bravery, mixed with their own simulated reverence, would bring value to the family Bible. The bullet-hole Bible has become such an old story that every time I hear a shot I think it is someone aiming at the old family Scriptures in the back yard.
But this is nothing to the Genevan, or Breeches, Bible, the commonest of all. It is so named because of the seventh verse in the third chapter of Genesis:--
Then the eyes of them bothe were opened & they knewe that they were naked; and they sewed figtre leaves together, and made themselves breeches.