Part 10

The dispersals of book-collections in 1890 included a few of considerable note. The exceedingly extensive one, for example, of the late Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart., Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was highly interesting as illustrating a phase of book-collecting which is now all but obsolete. It was rich in the classics, which three-quarters of a century ago would have created the greatest excitement. It occupied twenty-one days (May-June), when 6,919 lots realized a total of £10,982 3s.--a highly satisfactory result, when the general depreciation in the market value of the classics is considered. The extensive library of Mr. Thomas Gaisford (2,218 lots, £9,182 15s. 6d.), which was sold in April, 1890, included not only some fine editions of the classics, but a remarkable series of Blake's works, first editions of Keats, Byron, Shelley, Swinburne, the four folio editions of Shakespeare, and a few quartos, notably the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' 1602, £385; 'Love's Labour Lost,' 1598, £140; and 'Much Adoe about Nothing,' 1600, £130, all first editions. Some very interesting and rare Shakespeare items occurred also in the sale of the library of the late Frederick William Cosens, 1890, _e.g._, 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600, £270; and the 'Poems,' 1640, £61. The dramatic library of the late Frank Marshall (Sotheby's, June, 1890, £2,187 14s. 6d.), and the angling books of the late Francis Francis (Puttick's, July, 1890), were interesting collections in the way of special books.

The most noteworthy collections dispersed in 1891 included the Walton Hall library of the late Edward Hailstone, who was D.L. of the West Riding, Yorkshire (sold in February and April, 5,622 lots, £8,991 5s. 6d.), among which were many books of an exceedingly curious character; and the 'Lakelands' library of the late W. H. Crawford, of Lakelands, co. Cork (3,428 lots, £21,255 19s. 6d.), remarkable on account of its copy of the Valdarfer Boccaccio, 1471, £230; a copy (? unique) of Caviceo, 'Dialogue treselegant intitule le Peregrin,' 1527, on vellum, with the arms of France, £355; the Landino edition of Dante, 1481, with the engravings by Bacio Baldini from the designs by Botticelli, £360; Shakespeare's 'Lucrece,' 1594, £250, and 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600, £111; and the 'Legenda Aurea,' printed by Caxton, 1483, £465. The topographical and general library of the late Lord Brabourne was sold in May, 1891, also at Sotheby's; whilst the remainder of this library was sold at Puttick's in June, 1893. The collections scattered in 1892 included few of note, but we may mention those of the late Joshua H. Hutchinson, G. B. Anderson, and R. F. Cooke (a partner in the firm of John Murray, the eminent publisher) as including many first editions of modern authors; whilst those of John Wingfield Larking and Edwin Henry Lawrence, F.S.A., included a number of rare books, as may be gathered from the fact that the library of the former comprised 946 lots, which realized £3,925 13s., and that of the latter, 860 lots, £7,409 3s. The most interesting collection sold in 1893 was the selected portions from the books, MSS., and letters collected by William Hazlitt, his son, and his grandson; of the first importance in another direction was the sale of the Bateman heirlooms (books and MSS.).

The late Rev. W. E. Buckley, M.A., formerly Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford, and late Rector of Middleton-Cheney, Banbury, and vice-president of the Roxburghe Club, was a veritable Heber in a small way. Besides the enormous quantity of books sold in two portions (twenty-two days in all) in February, 1893, and April, 1894, several vanloads were disposed of locally, as not being worth the cost of carriage to London. His library must have comprised nearly 100,000 volumes, of which only a small proportion had any commercial importance. He managed, however, in his long career, to pick up a few bargains, notably the Columbus 'Letter' ('Epistola Christofori Colom.,' four leaves, 1493, with which was bound up Vespucci, 'Mundus novus Albericus Vesputius,' etc., 1503, also four leaves), which cost him less than £5, and which realized £315; he also possessed a first edition of Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' 1766, £39 10s.; Keats's 'Poems,' first edition, 1817, in the original boards, £23 10s.; Fielding's 'Tom Jones,' 1749, first edition, uncut, in the original boards, £69. The two portions of the Buckley library sold at Sotheby's realized £9,420 9s. 6d. The smallest, as well as the choicest, library sold in 1894 (June 11) comprised the most select books from the collection of Mr. Birket Foster, the distinguished artist. The first, second, third, and fourth folio Shakespeares sold for £255, £56, £130, and £25 respectively; the quarto editions of the great dramatist included 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 1600, large copy, £122; 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600, £146; 'King Lear,' 1608, £100. Mr. Foster also possessed John Milton's copy of 'Lycophronis Alexandra,' which realized £90; an incomplete copy of Caxton's 'Myrrour of the World,' 1491, £77. The valuable and interesting dramatic and miscellaneous library of the late Frederick Burgess, of the Moore and Burgess minstrels, was sold at Sotheby's, in May-June, 1894, and included many choice editions of modern authors.

The late Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte was a giant among book-collectors, but his books were almost exclusively philological. Mr. Victor Collins, who has compiled an 'Attempt' at a catalogue, in which there are no less than 13,699 entries, states that 'as a young man the Prince was fond of chemistry, and on one occasion he was desirous of reading a chemical work that happened to exist only in Swedish. He learned Swedish for the purpose, and this gave him a taste for languages, very many of which he studied. His object in forming the library was to discover, rather perhaps to show, the relationship of all languages to each other. Nor was it only distinct languages he included in his plan, but their dialects, their corruptions, even slang, thieves' slang--slang of all kinds. In carrying out his idea the Prince had of course the advantages of exceptional abilities, and, until the fall of the Empire, of unlimited money. Some of the bindings are very beautiful. As to the printing, the Prince for long had a fully-fitted printing-office on the basement floor of his house in Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater. The Prince being a Senator of France, a cousin of Louis Napoleon, and a well-known philologist, people brought him all sorts of interesting books. Therefore it is not surprising to find that the library includes rare works not present, for instance, in the British Museum. There are three early German Bibles which Mr. Gladstone, visiting the Prince once, thought should be presented to the British Museum. To the best of Mr. Gladstone's knowledge, one of the three did not exist anywhere else, and either of the three would be worth about £500. They are remarkable specimens of early German printing, and are profusely illustrated.' Mr. Collins calculates that there are at least 25,000 volumes in the collection, and that fully thirty alphabets are spread through them. This extraordinary collection, like the Shakespearian one formed by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, is still awaiting a purchaser (see the _Times_, July 25, 1895).

The collection, also a special one, of a recently-deceased book-collector may be mentioned here, and for the following particulars we are indebted to Mr. Elliot Stock: 'Edmund Waterton, the son of Charles Waterton, the naturalist, lived at first at Walton Hall, his father's residence. He sold this, and bought a house at Deeping, Waterton, where his ancestors formerly lived. He had a large old library, a great part of which he inherited from his father. His great pleasure was in his "Imitatio Christi" collection. He succeeded in gathering together some 1,500 different editions, printed and MS. He had given commissions to booksellers all over Europe to send him any edition they might meet with, and one of the pleasures of his life was to see the foreign packets come by post. I sent him a seventeenth-century edition which I came across accidentally for his acceptance on "spec." It turned out it was one he had been looking for for a long time, and his letter describing his glee when it was brought up to his bedroom in the morning with his breakfast was very comic. He kept an oblong volume like a washing-book, with all the editions he knew of, some thousands in all, and his delight in ticking one more off the lengthy _desiderata_ was like that of a schoolboy marking off the "days to the holidays." Edmund Waterton had a number of rare books besides those in his "Imitation" collection; notably a very tall First Folio Shakespeare, with contemporary comments made by some ancestor, who had also made good some of the missing pages in MS. He was a lineal descendant of Sir Thomas More, on his mother's side, and possessed Sir T. More's clock, which still went when I stayed with him. It was apparently the same clock that hangs on the wall at the back of Holbein's celebrated picture of Sir Thomas More and his family. Waterton had one of the longest and clearest pedigrees in the country, tracing back to Saxon times without break; his family were Catholics, and seem to have lost most of their property in the troublous times of the Reformation. Anyone who was interested in the "Imitation," whether as a collector or not, always met with kindness, and almost affection, from him. The first time I met him--which arose from my making the facsimile of the Brussels MS.--he showed his confidence and goodwill by lending me, for several days, his oblong record of editions to look over.'

Mr. Waterton's collection of the 'Imitation' came under the hammer at Sotheby's in January, 1895, in two lots. The first comprised six manuscripts and 762 printed editions, ancient and modern, in various languages, of this celebrated devotional work, arranged in languages in chronological order. It realized £101. The second lot comprised a collection of 437 printed editions, a few of which were not included in the former, and sold for the equally absurd amount of £43. The British Museum had the first pick of this collection, and the authorities were enabled to fill up a large number of gaps in their already extensive series of editions. The six MSS. and over 250 printed editions passed into the possession of Dr. Copinger, of Manchester, through Messrs. Sotheran, of the Strand, who, indeed, purchased the two 'lots' when offered at Sotheby's.

FOOTNOTES:

[47:A] 'In a small gloomy house within the gates of Elliot's Brewery, between Brewer Street, Pimlico, and York Street, Westminster.'--Wheatley's edition of Cunningham's 'London.'

[55:A] The library of Beauclerk (who is better remembered as an intimate friend of Dr. Johnson than as a book-collector) comprised 30,000 volumes, was sold by Paterson in 1781, and occupied fifty days. It was a good collection of classics, poetry, the drama, books of prints, voyages, travels, and history.

[61:A] Among the absentees were his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, who was prevented attending the anniversary by indisposition, the Marquis of Blandford, and Sir M. M. Sykes, Bart.

[62:A] The name really employed was Bannatyne.

[64:A] Thorpe suspected this, and secured the volume, thinking to do his friends of the Roxburghe Club a good turn. Writing to Dibdin, Thorpe said: 'I bought it for £40 against the editor of the _Athenæum_, who, if he got it, would have shown the club up finely larded.' But Dibdin did not jump at paying so heavy a price for silence, and Thorpe wisely consoled himself with Mr. Dilke's £50.

[68:A] Heathcote dispersed two portions of his books at Sotheby's, first in April, 1802, and secondly in May, 1808. Some of the books which Dent obtained for him, with additions, were sold at the same place in April, 1808.

[72:A] This famous old place possesses a literary history which would fill a fairly long chapter. Among those who have lived here we may mention Ephraim Chambers, whose 'Cyclopædia' is the parent of a numerous offspring; John Newbery lived here for some time, and it was during his tenancy that Goldsmith found a refuge here from his creditors, and wrote 'The Deserted Village' and 'The Vicar of Wakefield'; William Woodfall had lodgings in this historic tower; and Washington Irving, early in the present century, threw around it a halo of romance and interest which it had not previously possessed.

[77:A] Hazlitt was a good deal of a book-borrower. In his 'Conversations with Northcote' he speaks of having been obliged to pay five shillings for the loan of 'Woodstock' at a regular bookseller's shop, as he could not procure it at the circulating libraries.

BOOK-AUCTIONS AND SALES.

I.

IT is perhaps to be regretted that the late Adam Smith did not make an inquiry into the subject of Books and their Prices. The result, if not as exhaustive as the 'Wealth of Nations,' would have been quite as important a contribution to the science of social economy. In a general way, books are subject, like other merchandise, to the laws of supply and demand. But, as with other luxuries, the demand fluctuates according to fashion rather than from any real, tangible want. The want, for example, of the edition of Chaucer printed by Caxton, or of the Boccaccio by Valdarfer, is an arbitrary rather than a literary one, for the text of neither is without faults, or at all definitive. To take quite another class of books as an illustration: the demand for first editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Ruskin, and others, is perhaps greater than the supply; but we do not read these first editions any more than the Caxton Chaucer or the Valdarfer Boccaccio; we can get all the good we want out of the fiftieth edition. We do not, however, feel called upon to anticipate the labours and inquiries of the future Adam Smith; it must suffice us to indicate some of the more interesting prices and fashions in book-fancies which have prevailed during the last two centuries or so in London.

The sale of books by auction dates, in this country at all events, from the year 1676, when William Cooper, a bookseller of considerable learning, who lived at the sign of the Pelican, in Little Britain, introduced a custom which had for many years been practised on the Continent. The full title of this interesting catalogue is in Latin--a language long employed by subsequent book-auctioneers--and runs as follows:

CATALOGUS | VARIORUM ET INSIGNIUM | LIBRORUM | INSTRUCTISSIMÆ BIBLIOTHECA | CLARISSIMI DOCTISSIMIQ VIRI--LAZARI SEAMAN, S. T. D. | QUORUM AUCTIO HABEBITUR LONDINI | IN ÆDIBUS DEFUNCTI IN AREA ET VICULO | WARWICENSI. OCTOBRIS ULTIMO | CURA GULIELMI COOPER BIBLIOPOLÆ | LONDINI.

{ GRUIS IN CÆMETARIO } { ED. BREWSTER } { PAULINO } APUD { & } AD INSIGNE { PELICANI IN } 1676. { GUIL. COOPER. } { VICO VULGARITER } { DICTO } { LITTLE BRITAIN. }

As will be seen from the foregoing, Cooper had no regular auction-rooms, for in this instance Dr. Seaman's books were sold at his own house in Warwick Court. Mr. John Lawler, in _Booklore_, December, 1885, points out an error first made by Gough (in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and extensively copied since), who states that the sale occurred at Cooper's house in Warwick Lane. In his preface 'To the Reader,' Cooper makes an interesting announcement, by way of apology. 'It hath not been,' he says, 'usual here in England to make sale of books by way of Auction, or who will give most for them; but it having been practised in other Countreys to the advantage of Buyers and Sellers, it was therefore conceived (for the encouragement of learning) to publish the sales of these books in this manner of way; and it is hoped that this will not be Unacceptable to Schollars; and therefore we thought it convenient to give an advertisement concerning the manner of Proceeding therein.' The second sale, comprising the library of Mr. Thomas Kidner, was held by Cooper three months after, _i.e._, February 6, 1676-77. On February 18, 1677-78, the third sale by auction was held, and this, as Mr. Lawler has pointed out, is the first 'hammer'[100:A] auction, and was held at a coffee-house--'in vico vulgo dicto, Bread St. in Ædibus Ferdinandi stable coffipolæ ad insigne capitis Turcæ,' the auctioneer in this case being Zacharius Bourne, whilst the library was that of the Rev. W. Greenhill, author of a 'Commentary on Ezekiel,' and Rector of Stepney, Middlesex. The fourth sale was that of Dr. Thomas Manton's library, in March, 1678. From 1676 to 1682, no less than thirty sales were held, and these included, in addition to the four already mentioned, the libraries of Brooke, Lord Warwick, Sir Kenelm Digby (see p. 120), Dr. S. Charnock, Dr. Thomas Watson, John Dunton, the crack-brained bookseller, Dr. Castell, the author of the 'Heptaglotton,' Dr. Thomas Gataker, and others. The business of selling by auction was so successful that several other auctioneers adopted it, including such well-known booksellers as Richard Chiswell and Moses Pitt. At a very early period a suspicion got about that the books were 'run up' by those who had a special interest in them, and accordingly the vendors of Dr. Benjamin Worsley's sale, in May, 1678, emphatically denied this imputation, which they described as 'a groundless and malicious suggestion of some of our own trade envious of our undertaking.' In addition to this statement, they refused to accept any 'commissions' to buy at this sale.

The dispersal of books by auction developed in many ways. It soon became, for example, one means of getting rid of the bookseller's heavy stock, of effecting what is now termed a 'rig.' Its popularity was extended to the provinces, for from 1684 and onwards Edward Millington[101:A] visited the provinces, selecting fair times for preference, taking with him large quantities of books, which he sold at auction, and this doubtless was another method of distributing works which were more or less still-born. John Dunton (who, the Pretender said, was the first man he would hang when he became King) took a cargo of books to Ireland in 1698, and most of these he sold by auction in Dublin. This visit was not welcomed by the Irish booksellers, and one of its numerous results was 'The Dublin Scuffle,' which is still worth reading. Dunton's receipts amounted to £1,500. It was said that Dunton had 'done more service to learning by his three auctions than any single man that had come into Ireland for the previous three hundred years.'

It may be pointed out that the early auction catalogues are of the 'thinnest' possible nature. The books were usually arranged according to subjects, but each lot, irrespective of its importance, was confined to a single line. The sales were at first usually held from eight o'clock in the morning until twelve, and again from two o'clock till six, a day's sale therefore occupying eight hours. Mr. Lawler calculates that the average number of lots sold would be about sixty-six. The early hour at which the sales began was soon dropped, and eventually the time of starting became noon, and from that to one or even two o'clock. It is quite certain that, up to ten shillings, penny and twopenny bids were accepted. The sales were chiefly held at the more noteworthy coffee-houses. Dr. King, in his translation (?) of Sorbière's 'Journey to London,' 1698, says: 'I was at an auction of books at Tom's Coffee-house, near Ludgate, where were about fifty people. Books were sold with a great deal of trifling and delay, as with us, but very cheap. Those excellent authors, Mounsieur Maimbourg, Mounsieur Varillas, Monsieur le Grand, tho' they were all guilt on the back and would have made a very considerable figure in a gentleman's study, yet, after much tediousness, were sold for such trifling sums that I am asham'd to name 'em.'

It is curious to note the evolution of the book-auctioneer from the bookseller. Besides the names already quoted, John Whiston, Thomas Wilcox, Thomas and Edward Ballard, Sam Bathoe, Sam Paterson, Sam Baker, and George Leigh, were all booksellers as well as book-auctioneers. Of these the firm established by Samuel Baker in 1744 continues to flourish in Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge. The earlier auctioneers with whom books were a special feature, but who did not sell books except under the hammer, include Cock (under the Great Piazza, Covent Garden), Langford (who succeeded to Cock's business), Gerard, James Christie, Greenwood, Compton, and Ansell.