The Confessions of a Collector

overy-A Narrow Escape for some Very Rare Volumes in 1865-A Few Remarkable Instances of Good Fortune for Me-Not for Others-Three Very Severe 'Frosts'-A Great Boom-Sir John Fenn's Wonderful Books at las

d Days-Unique A.B.C.'s and Other Early School-Books-The Somers Tracts-Mr Quaritch and His Bibliographical Services to Me-His Independence of Character-The British Museum-My Resort to It for My Venetian Studies Forty Years Ago-The Sources of Supply in the Printed Book Department-

ent moment there is a desperate run on sixteenth and seventeenth century English books and on capital productions, because a few Americans have taken the infection; they know nothing of values, so long as the article is right; and therefore the price is no object. It is merely necessary to satisfy yourself that your client wants the book or books, and you may without grave risk pose at the sale-room table and in the papers as a model of intrepidity

laration of the Duke of Brabant (Philip III. of Spain) proffering a Truce with the Netherlands, 1607, and I have not since met with a second copy. It is over twenty years ago. I have occasionally registered the title of a piece, which I have found in the warehouse in the hands of a cataloguer; and it was fortunate that I did so as regarded A Farewell to Captain (afterward Sir Walter) Gray, on his departure for Holland, 1605, as the article was never again seen. There has been a good deal of this sort of miscarriage. Quite at the outset of my bibliographical career, the most ancient printed English music-book, 1530, w

r library, and proved fatal to much of Lord Charlemont's. It was a most fortunate circumstance that just at the moment Halliwell-Phillipps

basket, and divided the rest between the British Museum and Messrs Pearson & Co. There were two other dispersions of curious old books, which I may exemplify. At the Auchinleck sale the prices were not low, but were extremely moderate, considering the character of many of the early Scotish tracts there offered; but the other instance, where a gentleman had with the assistance of John Pearson and others formed a collection of early English poetry, making the Bibliotheca Anglo-poetica the nucleus, was a deplorable fiasco. Books went for fewer shillings than they were worth pounds. I bought Drayton's Mortimeriados, 1596, clean and uncut, which Mr Quaritch had acquired for the late owner for ￡17, for 16s. No one particularly wanted that class of books just at the moment, and the field was open to the opportunist. Th

vagant. There was a kind of mysterious halo round the affair. People had heard of such books being in existence, and longed to put the report to a practical test. Herbert, in his revision of Ames, had quoted Sir John Fenn, the

d the second (with the defects indicated) ￡15. A really valuable lot, which belonged to Sir John Fenn, and which had gone somehow equally astray, was subsequently offered for sale at another room, and brought ￡81. It was Nicholas Breton's Works of a Young Wit (1577), and was one of my bibliographical desiderata. I took a full note of it of course, and should have willingly gone to ￡42 as a matter of purchase. Mr Quaritch trusted to the prevailing American boom, and was there to win the day against all comers with the feeling that those who opposed hi

of precedents in such cases brings a certain type of early literature within the magical circle of objets de vertu, when economic laws cease to o

printed books formerly belonging to Thomas Astle the antiquary, and chiefly relating to Suffolk, the Tower, and America; while the second was a series of autograph letters, particularly a small parcel addressed by Mottley the historian to Prince Bismarck between 1862 and 1872. The auctioneers looked

es himself 'Always most sincerely your old friend;' and the next of 1864 starts with 'My dear old Bismarck.' There was evidently much cordiality and sympathy. A good deal of pleasantry arises out of some photographs of the great German's family and himse

fer to two letters from Sir Christopher Hatton in his own hand to a lady, couched in most familiar and affectionate

nown to exist somewhere, at last emerged from their places of concealment. Mr Swainson had bought many of his books at the sale of George Steevens in 1800; the Way lot belonged to about the same date. Among the latter were such prizes as the original editions of Arthur of Little Britain and England's Helicon. The Berners Street business took place on the pre

, with both titles-a book which has been repeatedly sold for ￡60 or ￡70, and which the auctioneers misdescribed, as if it had been something unique and unknown. The Beckford books realised perfectly insane prices, and were afterward resold for a sixth or even tenth of the amount to the serious loss of somebody, when the barometer had fallen. The Thuanus copy of Buchanan's Poems, 1579, which was carried to ￡54, was offered to me in October, 1886, for ￡15. Of course there have always been inflati

one of David Laing's publications, I told him that if he would let me have the first, I would not bid on the second. He was so amiable as to assent, and the almost unique little volume fell

I had known that house since 1857, when I was baulked, as I have elsewhere related, in my attempt to obtain an unique copy of the Earl of Surrey'

others to have it. Your friends, as a rule, estimate you according to the house, in which you live, and the undertaker by the order, which he gets for your funeral; but the auctioneer appraises you by your value to him as a bidder at his table and by the marketable quality of the property, which you leave behind. If it happens that you are only a scholar, occasionally picking up a cheap lot, or a bibliographer, taking notes for the

dge, who was in the rostrum, disclaimed any knowledge of such a thing, whereupon says Mr Walford to him, 'You are the only person who does not know about it, then.' The other day

on the discretion of the auctioneer. Let one instance suffice. In 1882 there appeared in a catalogue published by the firm The Famous and Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington, octavo, 1656, a mediocre copy, but twenty years earlier than any on record.

een supplied from the next earliest edition in the British Museum, and as bound by F. Bedford; it was further stated, that every possible search had been made for a second copy without success. Thi

to another, whence the missing leaf might be supplied. I did so; but he eventually took it, not from the next earliest issue, which

some specimens of old Scotish binding, but thought better of it afterward, and the next morning Richardson went to Piccadilly, and offered to lose

nd a friend of Tennyson, who met Longfellow under that roof. There is a curious story of Wilberforce, when he was at Winchester, making one of a picnic party at Simeon's, and, the guests strolling

t for it, till it was knocked down to me, and a volume of early pieces relating to murders, accidents, and other cognate matters in the finest state. There seemed to be no voice lifted up for them beyond a bid, which I could easily cap. One of the most remarkable early grammars in the British Museum occurred here, and fetched only 44s. although it was in the highest preservation and wholly undescribed. Another work of this class, which led to a certain amount of inquiry, was an A B C printed on

Elizabethan pamphlet respecting Edward Glemham, 1591, fell to Mr Quaritch, and from him passed to me at 36s. My intimacy with the market-value of these relics inspired my eminent acquaintance by degrees with a distrust of me, and led to a cessation of his catalogues. I own that I should have looked from such a quar

nly in a re-issue of 1609. I committed the stupid and double blunder of fancying that it was the former and less important article, which was imperfect, and of suggesting to the auctioneers, that the book should be sold with all faults. Even then I had to give ￡5, 2s. 6d. for it, a

books and pamphlets in our early literature have fallen under my eyes in Leicester Square. Once it was a parcel, I recollect, including, amon

comprised some of the rarest Americana, especially the Laws of New York, printed there in 1693-4, and probably one of the earliest specimens of local typography. I forget what I left with the auctioneers; but the price, at which the hammer fell, was ￡61. A sing

st bidder never despairs of finding, when he gets home, somebody more enthusiastic or more foolish than himself. I sometimes look round, while a sale is proceeding, and nearly all t

mmercial circle, and has enabled me to preserve from the risk of destruction a vast body of original matter. Mr Quaritch cannot have realised any appreciable advantage from publishing my Bibliographical Collections from 1882 to

aw a copy of Fortunatus in English in his window one day, marked 12s., and I went in to buy it. He was just by the door, and when he learned my object, 'Ah,' said he, 'I have kept that book so long, that it is 15s. if you want it,' and the higher figure I had to pay. There was never any remarkable event in my life immediately identifiable with

tion-rooms and elsewhere, and in agreeing to defray the entire cost of the General Index to a large portion of it. I look forward to the possibility of carrying on the task piecemeal, till it emb

ew titles awai

thinking that it might be of service; but I had to return the copy with a message by the same channel that the descriptions were

hear that his lordship is regarded as one of the best-informed men on the Board of Trustees in Gr

se and pluck are marvellous; and they are the outcome, for the most part, not of foolhardihood, but of genius. A man, who buys blindly, soon reaches the end of his tether. That Mr Quaritch for divers reasons has often made unwise purchases, and has missed his mark, may be perfectly the fact; but in the main he has obviously struck the right vein; and he pursues his policy season after season, witnessing the departure of old clients (or, as he w

and somewhat exacting requirements. They soon formed the habit, when it was found that I was an earnest and genuine worker, of waiving in my favour, so far as it wa

I was self-complacently happy in the unconsciousness of my own intense ignorance of the magnitude of the task and of the fact that, at a distance of forty years, I should still have merely reached a more advanced stage of my

guely and desultorily, and by degrees on a more systematic principle; and cogent circumstances-that necessity for living, which Dr Johnson ignored-finally drove me into the market as a speculator. My conversance with old books was very special and defective; of many classes I knew next to nothing; but I gradua

ld volumes in Great Russell Street in the expectation of a more or less rich harvest, in which they are apt to be more or less disappointed. Here and there a real treasure is netted. The Bishop of Bath and Wells brought a small octavo volume from Ickworth, comprising the Prophete Jonas and other tracts of singular scarcity and importance. A gentleman from Woolwich int

hases made direct from the sales and the shops, contributed of late years most largely to

host in himself. These relations, however, were purely bibliographical; while those with the Museum were of a more mingled yarn, and my connectio

hand, about ￡700. Mr Quaritch was stated to have been very wroth, when he found that he had missed the lot, and declared that his ground for scepticism was the fact that the only copy in the market or likely to occur for sale was in Russia; and he then learned for the first time, that the present one had been obtained at St Petersburg. I called on Mr Garnett, and inquired what were the actual circumstan

for me here, while I filled the r?le of a collector on my own account in a humble degree. But when I had occasion, at a later period, to put volumes into new liveries, and their condition demanded nice handling, I employed Riviere, whom I found very satisfactory and punctual. His place of business in Piccadilly adjoining Pickering's shop was during years one of my not least agreeable resorts, and I profited, with the concurrence of the principal, by the constant presence on the premises of undescribed books or editions consigned for binding. Of Bedford I saw very little. He was a true artist, and a very unassuming, pleasant fellow, whom I occasionally visited at his address in or near York Street, Westminster. My first cal

, and have them separately clothed, it is in others, and perhaps for the

d a study of the MSS. within my reach. My pronounced taste for method and minuti? in early English literature extended to Italy, when I was endeavouring to concentrate on the history of the Republic all the direct and collateral light, which I was enabled to gather from various sources; and the same thing may be truly predicated of the commissions, which I executed for several publishers, beginning with Russell Smith and Reeves & Turner. Mine have been chiefl

ete in many places, in one to the extent of omitting a line. In my reconstructed and enlarged Dodsley, in fifteen thick octavo volumes, containing eighty-four dramas, I have a table of errata of thirty-six items, many very trivial and even dubious; and of this total five-and-twenty occur in one play, which I n

there for the first time presented in an English form and text agreeably to my view and estimate of the facts relative to two of the most remarkable characters in romance. The accumulation of absurdities round those heroes of the closet and the stage prompted me, years and years since, to endeavour to reduce the legends to a shape more com

tocks. Considering that it is a big book with numerous illustrations supplied by the editor, it is perhaps not much worse than it might have been, had it proceeded from a pen writing superiorum approbatione. The rumour arose that, as soon as the real work on the subject appeared, the attempt of an outsider would sink into

arty, who still occupied the position of Clerk to the Gild, and who pleaded damage to his reputation by the misprint, pointed out to him by the frustrated compiler aforesaid. There could be no sustainable plea of injury, and the large amount lost rendered it obvious that there must have been neglect by superiors; but th

f the entire business. Accordingly, the moment that I was advised by the firm, that they had (without previous consultation with me as a royalty-holder) converted themselve

a reverend professor at Cambridge, and he wrote back on a card: 'Thanks. Curious.' My former schoolmaster at Merchant Taylors had only to say that I had left out a Greek accent in a quotation, and a female relative, after two years' deliberation, apprised me that I was guilty of printing the wrong article in a French maxim. When I forwarded to Mr William Chappell direct as from myself an important volume edited