The Confessions of a Collector

Ruskin's Poems at Reading-The Walton's Angler-Locker and Pearson-James Toovey-Curious Incident in Connection with Sir Thomas Phillipps-Willis & Sotheran-Two Unique Cookery Books-Only Just in T

-My Numerous Transactions with the Latter-Another Unknown Taylor-John Camden Hotten-I sift His Stores in Piccadilly-The Bunyan Volume from Cornwall-John Salkeld-My Expedition to His Shop on a Sunday Night, and Its Fruit-A R

ddle Temple. Mr Huth sent it to Bedford, who removed the leaves, which constituted the feature; but I did not see the mischief, till it fell to my lot to catalogue the piece years afterward. My good friend was very tiresome and difficult in these small matters, which in bibliography are apt to become great ones. I obtained for him a bipartite volume by B

y desiderata of a collection, which was beginning under my auspices to assume a more general character than it possessed, when I entered on the scene in 1866. Even Lovelace's Lucasta, of which I purchased of Pearson George Daniel's copy for ￡3, 3s., Carew's Poems, 1640, of which I met with a beautiful specimen on thick paper in

never forget Pearson's exultation, when I acceded to his proposal; he seemed,

lor the Water-Poet's Works, and I was the victim. I said nothing, but, like the Frenchman's jackdaw, thought the more. He was an exceptionally shrewd and vigilant character, and nearly broke Lovejoy of Reading's heart by getting from his assistant an uncut copy of Ruskin's poems for a shilling during Lovejoy's absence. But Pearson paid the price, which the fellow asked. I was in the shop, when he had just received through a third party a lovely copy of Walton's Angler, 1653, in the pristine binding for ￡14 plus ￡3, 10s. to the bringer. The last copy in the market in precisely the same condition brought successive

re they will stop. Frederic Locker told me that he had asked him fifty guineas for a prose tract by Southwell a few years anterior in date to any recorded. Why not five hundred

nd to know what was the exact nature of this business; but it must have been a very profitable one. Ordinary bookselling made only a small part of it. I always took Toovey to be a Jew, till I found that he was a Catholic; and it was a laughable circumstance that,

d-established business, it mechanically attracted year by year an endless succession of private parcels and single lots, which generally rendered the monthly catalogues remunerative reading. It is more than a quarter of a century ago, since I received one of these lists at Kensington, and spied out two unique items in the shape of Cookery Books of the Elizabethan period at 10s. 6d. each. I was on the top of the next omnibus going Londonward, and entered the premises with a nervous uncertainty not le

A viii., the former a blank leaf. What the firm gave, I never heard; but when Lilly approached them on behalf of Mr Huth, the demand was ￡1000. It is always wise to start

e Museum, and for a duplicate of which Payne Collier safely offered at the time fifty guineas, and the equally rare copy of Drayton's Harmony of the Church, 1610, which was acquired by Mr Co

ination to want a leaf; but luckily in another list issued by the firm there was a second example misdescribed as Drayton's Poems, which, though elsewhere imperfect, supplied the immediate deficiency; and the duplicate, which had served me so well, was wasted. I had been about the same time disappointed by miss

e had written, and which he thought (most correctly) in need of editorship. The negotiation came to nothing, and so did my fee. It was not my province to inform the reverend gentleman that his MSS. were waste-paper, nor would the mention of his name be of any utility. He was unconsciously one of those sempiternal caterers for the paper-mill, whose unprinte

indifferent, and from whom it has been my fortune in the course of my career as a bi

search of a copy of Stapylton's Mus?us, 1647. It was marked 5s. 6d. in the catalogue, but, said the owne

late myself on the acquisition of an unique folio MS. of Edmond Waller's Poems, which his namesake had got from a furniture sale for one shilling, and let me have for fifty, of an unknown impression of A Description of Love, 1629, tenderly and mercifully swaddled between two imperfect books in a volume, and itself (the sole thing of value) as clean as a new penny, and several other ungratefully forgotten blessings. It was to the Wall

te with this firm are Philipot's Elegies on the Death of William Glover, Esquire of Shalston in Buckinghamshire, 1641, which cost me 4s., and Gardyne's Theatre of the Scottish Kings, 1709, both alike scarce to excess. Of neither

miscellanies at Sotheby's tied up together at the close of a season. I found that Walford was the buyer; and when I waited on him, it turned out that it was a commission. For whom? Well, a customer in Scotland. But he did not want th

y stated to me that a lot in the catalogue, which I selected, had been ordered over and over again. Such was the case with the Book of Measuring of Land, by Sir Richard de Benese, Canon of Merton Abbey, printed at Southwark about 1536 by James Nicholson, priced 15s. in the original stamped binding, and Henry Vaughan the Silurist's Thalia Rediviva, marked 25s. Smith said one morning that a party had sent him three tracts, which he shewed me, an

rnwall, in a volume, Cowley's Poems set to music by W. King, 1668, and Bunyan's Profitable Meditations, the latter unique, and now in the British Museum. I somehow missed that; but I bought the Cowley; it is the identi

outwit or overreach his client. Most unwillingly I had in the case of a small book, which he took, to involve him in two bills of costs from his sheer perversity in regard to his engagements; and the curio

poke to me of less punctual clients at a distance, whom he should like to hug. My most notable adventure in connection with him was the result of a catalogue, which he sent to me, so that I got it the last thing on a Saturday night. There was a Wither's Emblems, Daniel's Works and Panegyrick in a volume on large paper, and one or two other matters. They were not very c

of George Chapman's poetical works-his Epicede on Prince Henry, 1612, absolutely complete with the folded engraving, and Joshua Sylvester's Elegy on the same personage, so difficult to procure in such condition as Mr Huth always desired. These treasures I converted for Noble into cash, and was immediately afterward favou

Stibbs in Museum Street, and sold to Salkeld, who sold it to me. I was apprised by the original owner that he had traced it to my hands; but I pointed out tha

one of that of 1588 in the Museum being imperfect. A second acquisition was the copy, which had belonged to James I. of the long-lost first edition of Lennard's translation of Charron De la Sagesse, dedicated to

er or a box. They were perfectly clean and very much as they had left the printer's hands. The Nelson was the hitherto undiscovered pageant of the Fishmongers under the mayoralty of John Allot, Lord Mayor of London, and Mayor of the Staple, and was six-and-twenty years anterior to any of whic

Laing, in his edition of the old Scotish poet, 1865, speaks as having been seen by him in the library of Sion College, when he visited that institution about 1830. He mentions that he wished to verify something at a later date, and that the volume had disappeared. I found on inspection that this was the ide