Boohs and Bookmen ASHER ESTEY hbl, stx Z992L261899 Books and bookmen ... ^,e^^o.^ 3 T1S3 DDMEfl3fl3 b 1^ V '} '"^ / ^ ^ >«>■ z 992 1899 '■^ '»S r ...^^ \U-' o ^ WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. PICKLE THE SPY. i8^. THE COMPANIONS OF PICKLE. i6^. ESSAYS IN LITTLE. 2s. 6d. COCK LANE AND COMMON SENSE. 3^. 6d. BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS. 3^. 6d. HOMER AND THE EPIC. 9^. ?iet. MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 9^. THE MAKING OF RELIGION. 12s. ANGLING SKETCHES. With Illustrations by W. G. BuRX- MuRDOCH. 3^. 6d. MYTH. RITUAL, AND RELIGION. 2 vols. 7s. CUSTOM AND MYTH : Studies of Early Usage and Belief. With 15 Illustrations. 35. 6d. GRASS OF PARNASSUS. A Volume of Verses. 25. 6d. net. BALLADS OF BOOKS. Edited by Andrew Laxg. 6s. LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. 2s. 6d. net. BOOKS AND BOOKMEN, ^^'ith 2 Coloured Plates and 17 Illustrations, -zs. 6d. net. LETTERS ON LITERATURE. 25. 6d. net. OLD FRIENDS : Essays in Epistolary Parody. 2s. 6d. ?iet. ST. ANDREWS. i5:r. fiet. A MONK OF FIFE. 3s. 6d. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, &^ CO. BOOKS AND BOOKMEN TO THE VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY Madame, it is no modish thing, The bookman's tribute that I bring j A talk of antiquaries grey, Dust unto dust this many a day, Gossip of texts and bindings old, Of faded type, and tarnish'd gold ! Can ladies care for this to-do With Payne, Derome, and Padelotip t Cati they resign the ront^ the ball, For lonely joys of shelf and stall! The critic thus, serenely wise ; But you can read with other eyes, Whose books and bindings treasured are "Midst mingled spoils of peace and war ; Shields from the fights the Mahdi lost, And trinkets from the Golden Coast, And many a thing divinely done By Chippendale and Sheraton, VI And trophies of Egyptian deeds, And fans, and plates, and Aggrey beads, Pomander boxes, assegais. And sword-hilts worn in Marlbro's days. In this abode of old and new, Of war and peace, my essays, too, For long in serials tempest-tost. Are landed now, and are not lost : Nay, on your shelf secure they lie, As in the amber sleeps the fly. 'Tis true, they are not '' rich nor rare ; " Enough, for me, that they are— there ! A. L. PREFACE The Essays in this volume have, for the most part, already appeared in an American edition (Combes, New York, 1886). The Essays on *' Old French Title-Pages " and " Lady Book- Lovers " take the place of " Book Binding " and " Bookmen at Rome ; " " Elzevirs " and " Some Japanese Bogie-Books " are reprinted, with permission of Messrs. Cassell, from the Maga- zine of Art ; "Literary Forgeries" from the Co7itemporary Review; "Lady Book- Lovers" from the Fo7'tnightly Review ; "A Bookman's Purgatory " and two of the pieces of verse from Longman's Magcmine — with the courteous per- mission of the various editors. All the chapters have been revised, and I have to thank Mr. H. Tedder for his kind care in reading the proof sheets. The Author learns, on the best authority, that the modern flat-backed bindings, referred to on p. 175, line 7, are well supplied with nerfs, though these do not show, and are perfectly permanent. The artistic and traditional objeclion to flat, still more to hollow backs, is another question. As the reference on p. 155 is intended to show, "A Book- man's Purgatory " is adapted from a little volume, now rather rare, "L'Enfer d'un Bibliophile," by the late M. Charles Asselinean, CONTENTS PAGE Elzevirs i Ballade of the Real and Ideal 19 Rich and Poor 21 Doris's Books 40 The Rowfant Books 42 To F. L 44 Some Japanese Bogie-Books . 46 Ghosts in the Library 69 Literary Forgeries 73 Bibliomania in France 102 Old French Title-Pages 127 A Bookman's Purgatory 142 Ballade of the Unattainable ....... 15;) Lady Book-Lovers 159 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Elzevir Spheres 3 Elzevir Title-Page of the '* Imitation " of Thomas k Kempis 7 Elzevir ''Sage" '. 11 Japanese Children. Drawn by Hokusai ... 47 A Storm-Fiend 51 A Snow-Bogie 57 The Simulacrum Vulgare 61 A Well and Water Bogie 63 Raising the Wind 65 A Chink and Crevice Bogie 67 Fac-Simile of Binding from the Library of Grolier To face 116 Binding with the Arms of Madame de Pompa- dour To face 126 Old French Title-Pages 129, 130, 132, 133, 135, 137, 139 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN, ELZEVIRS. The Countryman. "You know how much, for some time past, the editions of the Elzevirs have been in demand. The fancy for them has even penetrated into the country. I am acquainted with a man there who denies himself necessaries, for the sake of collecting into a library (where other books are scarce enough) as many little Elzevirs as he can lay his hands upon. He is dying of hunger, and his conso- lation is to be able to say, ' I have all the poets whom the Elzevirs printed. I have ten examples of each of them, all with red letters, and all of the light date.' This, no doubt, is a craze, for, good as the books are, if he kept them to read them, one example of each would be enough." The Parisian. "If he had wanted to read them, I would not have advised him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minor authors which B 2 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. these booksellers published, even editions ' of the right date/ as you say, are not too correct. Nothing is good in the books but the type and the paper. Your friend would have done better to use the editions of Gryphius or Estienne." This fragment of a literary dialogue I translate from " Entretiens sur les Contes de Fees," a book which contains more of old talk about books and booksellers than about fairies and folk-lore. The "Entretiens " were published in 1699, about sixteen years after the Elzevirs ceased to be publishers. The fragment is valuable : first, because it shows us how early the taste for collecting Elzevirs was fully developed, and, secondly, because it contains very sound criticism of the mania. Already, in the seventeenth century, lovers of the tiny Elzevirian books waxed pathetic over dates, already they knew that a "Caesar" of 1635 ^'^-s the right "Caesar," already they were fond of the red-lettered passages, as in the first edition of the " Virgil " of 1636. As early as 1699, too, the Parisian critic knew that the editions were not very correct, and that the paper, type, ornaments, and format were their main attractions. To these we must now add the rarity of really good Elzevirs. Though Elzevirs have been more fashionable than at present, they are still regarded by ELZEVIRS. 3 novelists as the great prize of the book collector. You read in novels about "priceless little Elzevirs," about books "as rare as an old Elzevir." I have met, in the works of a lady- novelist (but not elsewhere), with an Elzevir " Theocritus." The late Mr. Hepworth Dixon introduced into one of his romances a romantic Elzevir Greek Testament, " worth its weight in gold." Casual remarks of this kind encourage a popular delusion that all Elzevirs are pearls of considerable price. When a man is first smitten with the pleasant fever of book-collect- ing, it is for Elzevirs that he searches. At first he thinks himself in amazing luck. In Book- sellers' Row and in Castle Street he " picks up," for a shilling or two, Elzevirs, real or supposed. To the beginner, any book with a sphere on the title-page is an Elzevir. For the beginner's instruction, two copies of spheres are printed 4 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. here. The first is a sphere, an ill-cut, ill- drawn sphere, which is not Elzevirian at all. The mark was used in the seventeenth century by many other booksellers and printers. The second, on the other hand, is a true Elzevirian sphere, from a play of Moliere's, printed in 1675. Observe the comparatively neat drawing of the second sphere, and be not led away after spurious imitations. Beware, too, of the vulgar error of fancying that little duodecimos with the mark of the fox and the bee's nest, and the motto " Quaerendo," come from the press of the Elzevirs. The mark is that of Abraham Wolfgang, which name is not a pseudonym for Elzevir. There are three sorts of Elzevir pseudonyms. First, they occa- sionally reprinted the full title-page, publisher's name and all, of the book they pirated. Secondly, when they printed books of a " dangerous " sort, Jansenist pamphlets and so forth, they used pseudonyms like ''Nic.Schouten," on the "Lettres Provinciales" of Pascal. Thirdly, there are real pseudonyms employed by the Elzevirs. John and Daniel, printing at Leyden (1652-1655), used the false name " Jean Sambix." The Elzevirs of Amsterdam often placed the name ''Jacques le Jeune" on their title-pages. The collector who remembers these things must ELZEVIRS. 5 also see that his purchases have the right orna- ments at the heads of chapters, the right tail- pieces at the ends. Two of the most frequently recurring ornaments are the so-called " Tete de Buffle " and the " Sirene." More or less clumsy copies of these and the other Elzevirian orna- ments are common enough in books of the period, even among those printed out of the Low Countries ; for example, in books published in Paris. A brief sketch of the history of the Elzevirs may here be useful. The founder of the family, a Flemish bookbinder, Louis, left Louvain and settled in Leyden in 15 So. He bought a house opposite the University, and opened a book- shop. Another shop, on college ground, was opened in 1587. Louis was a good bookseller, a" very ordinary publisher. It was not till shortly before his death, in 16 17, that his grandson Isaac bought a set of types and other material. Louis left six sons. Two of these, Matthew and Bonaventure, kept on the business, dating ex officina Elzeviriana. In 1625 Bona- venture and Abraham (son of Matthew) became partners. The " good dates " of Elzevirian books begin from 1626. The two Elzevirs chose excellent types, and after nine years' endeavours turned out the beautiful " Caesar " of 1635, 6 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Their classical series in petit format was opened with "Horace" and "Ovid" in 1629. In 1 641 they began their elegant piracies of French plays and poetry with " Le Cid." It was worth while being pirated by the Elzevirs, who turned you out like a gentleman, with fleiwons and red letters, and a pretty frontispiece. The modern pirate dresses you in rags, prints you murderously, and binds you, if he binds you at all, in some hideous example of " cloth extra," all gilt, like archaic gingerbread. Bonaventure and Abraham both died in 1652. They did not depart before publishing (1628), in grand format, a desirable work on fencing, Thibault's " Academie de I'Espee." This Tibbald also killed by the book. John and Daniel Elzevir came next. They brought out the " Imitation " (Thomae a Kempis canonici regularis ord. S. Augustini De Imitatione Christi, libri iv.) ; I wish by taking thought I could add eight milli- metres to the stature of my copy. In 1655 Daniel joined a cousin, Louis, in Amsterdam, and John stayed in Leyden. John died in 1661 ; his widow struggled on, but her son Abraham (1681) let all fall into ruins. Abraham died 17 12. The Elzevirs of Amsterdam lasted till 1680, when Daniel died, and the business was wound up. The type, by Christopher Van 8 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Dyck, was sold in 1681, by Daniel's widow. Sic transit gloria. After he has learned all these matters the amateur has still a great deal to acquire. He may now know a real Elzevir from a book which is not an Elzevir at all. But there are enormous differences of value, rarity, and excellence among the productions of the Elzevirian press. The bookstalls teem with small, "cropped," dingy, dirty, battered Elzevirian editions of the classics. 7zot '* of the good date." On these it is not worth while to expend a couple of shillings, especially as Elzevirian type is too small to be read with comfort by most modern eyes. No, let the collector save his money ; avoid littering his shelves with what he will soon find to be rubbish, and let him wait the chance of acquiring a really beautiful and rare Elzevir. Meantime, and before we come to describe Elzevirs of the first flight, let it be remembered that the " taller " the copy, the less harmed and nipped by the binder's shears, the better. " Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is," says Shelley ; and we may say that most men hardly know how beautiful an Elzevir was in its uncut and original form. The Elzevirs we have may be "dear," but they are certainly "dumpy twelves." Their fair proportions have been docked by the ELZEVIRS. 9 binder. At the Beckford sale there was a pearl of a book, a " Marot ; " not an Elzevir, indeed, but a book published by Wetstein, a follower of the Elzevirs. This exquisite pair of volumes, bound in blue morocco, was absolutely un- impaired, and was a sight to bring happy tears into the eyes of the amateur of Elzevirs. There was a gracious svelte elegance about these tomes, an appealing and exquisite delicacy of propor- tion, that linger like sweet music in the memory. I have a copy of the Wetstein " Marot " myself, not a bad copy, though murderously bound in that ecclesiastical sort of brown calf antique, which goes well with hymn books, and reminds one of cakes of chocolate. But my copy is only some 128 millimetres in height, whereas the uncut Beckford copy (it had belonged to the great Pixerecourt) was at least 130 millimetres h'gh. Beside the uncut example mine looks like Cinderella's plain sister beside the beauty of the family. Now the moral is that only tall Elzevirs are beautiful, only tall Elzevirs preserve their ancient proportions, only tall Elzevirs are worth collecting. Dr. Lemuel Gulliver remarks that the King of Lilliput was taller than any of his court by almost the breadth of a nail, and that his altitude filled the minds of all with awe. lo BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Well, the Philistine may think a few millimetres, more or less, in the height of an Elzevir are of little importance. When he comes to sell, he will discover the difference. An uncut, or almost uncut, copy of a good Elzevir may be worth fifty or sixty pounds or more ; an ordinary copy may bring fewer pence. The binders usually pare down the top and bottom more than the sides. I have a " Rabelais " of the good date, with the red title (1663), and some of the pages have never been opened, at the sides. But the height is only some 122 millimetres, a mere dwarf Anything over 130 millimetres is very rare. Therefore the collector of Elzevirs should have one of those useful ivory-handled knives on which the French measures are marked, and thus he will at once be able to satisfy himself as to the exact height of any example which he encounters. Let us now assume that the amateur quite understands what a proper Elzevir should be : tall, clean, well bound if possible, and of the good date. But we have still to learn what the good dates are, and this is matter for the study and practice of a well-spent life. We may gossip about a few of the more famous Elzevirs, those without which no collection is complete. Of all Elzevirs the most famous and the most ELZEVIRS. expensive is an old cookery book, " ' Le Pastissier Francois.' Wherein is taught the way to make all sorts of pastry, useful to all sorts of persons. Also the manner of preparing all manner of eggs, for fast-days, and other days, in more than sixty fashions. Amsterdam, Louys, and Daniel Elsevier. 1665." The mark is not the old " Sage," but the " Minerva " with her owl. Now this book has no intrinsic value any more than a Tauchnitz reprint of any modern volume on cooking. The " Pastissier " is cherished because it is so very rare. The tract passed into the hands of cooks, and the hands of cooks are detrimental to literature. Just as nursery books, fairy tales, and the like are destroyed from generation to generation, so it happens with books used in the kitchen. The "Pastissier," to be sure, has a good frontispiece, a scene in a T>ow Country kitchen, among the dead game 12 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. and the dainties. The buxom cook is making a game pie ; a pheasant pie, decorated with the bird's head and tail-feathers, is already made.^ Not for these charms, but for its rarity, is the '' Pastissier " coveted. In an early edition of the "Manuel" (1821) Brunet says, with a feigned brutality (for he dearly loved an Elzevir), " Till now I have disdained to admit this book into my work, but I have yielded to the prayers of amateurs. Besides, how could I keep out a volume which was sold for one hundred and one francs in 1819?" One hundred and one francs! If I could only get a " Pastissier " for one hundred and one francs ! But our grandfathers lived in the Bookman's Paradise. " II n'est pas jusqu'aux Anglais," adds Brunet — "the very English themselves — have a taste for the * Pas- tissier.' " The Duke of Marlborough's copy was actually sold for £\ ^. It would have been money in the ducal pockets of the house of Marlborough to have kept this volume till the general sale of all their portable property at which our generation was privileged to assist. No wonder the " Pastissier " was thought rare. Berard only knew two copies. Pietiers, writing on the Elzevirs in 1843, could cite only five " Pastissiers," and in his "Annales" he had ' See illustrations, pp. 133, 135. ELZEVIRS, 13 found out but five more. Willems, on the other hand, enumerates some thirty, not including Motteley's. Motteley was an uncultivated, un- taught enthusiast. He knew no Latin, but he had a flair for uncut Elzevirs. "Incomptis capillis," he would cry (it was all his lore) as he gloated over his treasures. They were all burnt by the Commune in the Louvre Library. A few examples may be given of the prices brought by " Le Pastissier" in later days. Sensier's copy was but 128 millimetres in height, and had the old ordinary vellum bind- ing, — in fact, it closely resembled a copy which Messrs. Ellis and White had for sale in Bond Street in 1883. The English booksellers asked, I think, about 1500 francs for their copy. Sensier's was sold for 128 francs in April, 1828 ; for 201 francs in 1837. Then the book was gloriously bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet, and was sold with Potier's books in 1870, when it fetched 2910 francs. At the Benzon sale (1875) it fetched 3255 francs, and, falling dreadfully in price, was sold again in 1877 for 2200 francs. M. Dutuit, at Rouen, has a taller copy, bound by Bauzonnet. Last time it was sold (185 1) it brought 251 francs. The Due de Chartres has now the copy of Pieters, the historian of the Elzevirs, valued at 3000 francs. 14 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN, About thirty years ago no fewer than three copies were sold at Brighton, of all places. M. Quentin Bauchart had a copy only 127 millimetres in height, which he swopped to ]\I. Paillet. M. Chartener, of Metz, had a copy now bound by Bauzonnet which was sold for four francs in 1780. We call this the age of cheap books, but before the Revolution books were cheaper. It is fair to say, however, that this example of the " Pastissier " was then bound up with another book, Vlacq's edition of " Le Cuisinier Francois," and so went cheaper than it would otherwise have done. M. de Fontaine de Resbecq declares that a friend of his bought six original pieces of Moliere's bound up with an old French translation of Garth's " Dispensary." The one faint hope left to the poor book collector is that he may find a valuable tract lurking in the leaves of some bound collection of trash. I have an original copy of Moliere's " Les Fascheux " bound up with a treatise on precious stones, but the bookseller from whom I bought it knew it was there ! That made all the difference. But, to return to our " Pastissier," here is M. de Fontaine de Resbecq's account of how he wooed and won his own copy of this illustrious Elzevir. *' I began my walk to-day," says this ELZEVIRS. 15 haunter of ancient stalls, "by the Pont Marie and the Ouai de la Greve, the pillars of Hercules of the book-hunting world. After having viewed and reviewed these remote books, I was going away, when my attention was caught by a small naked volume, without a stitch of binding. I seized it, and what was my delight when I recognised one of the rarest of that famed Elzevir collection whose height is measured as minutely as the carats of the diamond. There was no indication of price on the box where this jewel was lying ; the book, though unbound, was perfectly clean within. * How much ? ' said I to the bookseller. ' You can have it for six sous,' he answered ; ' is it too much?' 'No,' said I, and, trembling a little, I handed him the thirty centimes he asked for the * Pastissier Frangois.' You may believe, my friend, that after such a piece of luck at the start, one goes home fondly embracing the beloved object of one's search. That is exactly what I did." Can this tale be true ? Is such luck given by the jealous fates Diortalibiis csgrisf M. de Resbecq's find was made apparently in 1856, when trout were plenty in the streams, and rare books not so very rare. To my own know- ledge an English collector has bougrht an i6 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN, original play of Moliere's, in the original vellum, for eighteenpence. But no one has such luck any longer. Not, at least, in London. A more expensive " Pastissier " than that which brought six sous was priced in Bachelin-Deflorenne's catalogue at ;^240. A curious thing occurred when two uncut " Pastissiers " turned up simul- taneously in Paris. One of them Morgand and Fatout sold for £^Q0. Clever people argued that one of the twin uncut " Pastissiers " must be an imitation, a fac-simile by means of photo- gravure, or some other process. But it was triumphantly established that both were genuine ; they had minute points of difference in the ornaments. M. Willems, the learned historian of the Elzevirs, is indignant at the successes of a book which, as Brunet declares, is badly printed. There must be at least forty known "Pastissiers" in the world. Yes ; but there are at least 4000 people who would greatly rejoice to possess a " Pastissier," and some of these de- sirous ones are very wealthy. While this state of the market endures, the " Pastissier " will fetch higher prices than the other varieties. Another extremely rare Elzevir is " L'lllustre Theatre de Mons. Corneille " (Leyden, 1644). This contains "Le Cid," " Les Horaces," " Le ELZEVIRS. 17 Cinna," " La IMort de Pompee," " Le Polyeucte." The name, " L'lUustre Theatre,", appearing at that date has an interest of its own. In 1643-44, Moliere and Madeleine Bejart had just started the company which they called " L'lllustre Theatre." Only six or seven copies of the book are actually known, though three or four are believed to exist in England, probably all covered with dust in the library of some lord. ** He has a very good library," I once heard some one say to a noble earl, whose own library was famous. " And what can a fellow do with a very good library ? " answered the descendant of the Crusaders, who probably (being a youth light-hearted and content) was ignorant of his own great possessions. An expensive copy of " L'lllustre Theatre," bound by Trautz-Bau- zonnet, was sold for ;^300. Among Elzevirs desirable, yet not hopelessly rare, is the " Virgil " of 1636. Heinsius was the editor of this beautiful volume, prettily printed, but incorrect. Probably it is hard to correct with absolute accuracy works in the clear but minute type which the Elzevirs affected. They have won fame by the elegance of their books, but their intention was to sell good books cheap, like Michel Levy. The small type was required to get plenty of " copy " into little bulk. Nicholas c i8 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Heinsius, the son of the editor of the " Virgil," when he came to correct his father's edition, found that it contained so many coqidlles, or misprints, as to be nearly the most incorrect copy in the world. Heyne says, "Let the * Virgil ' be one of the rare Elzevirs, if you please, but within it has scarcely a trace of any good quality." Yet the first edition of this beautiful little book, with its two passages of red letters, is so desirable that, till he could possess it, Charles Nodier would not profane his shelves by any "Virgil " at all. Equally fine is the "Caesar" of 1635, which, with the "Virgil" of 1636 and the " Imitation " without date, M. Willems thinks the most suc- cessful work of the Elzevirs, " one of the most enviable jewels in the casket of the bibliophile." It may be recognised by the page 149, which is erroneously printed 153. A good average height is from 125 to 128 millimetres. The highest known is 130 millimetres. This book, like the " Imitation," has one of the pretty and in- genious frontispieces which the Elzevirs pre- fixed to their books. So farewell, and good speed in your sport, ye hunters of Elzevirs, and may you find perhaps the rarest Elzevir of all, " L'Aimable Mere de Jesus." ( 19 ) BALLADE OF THE REAL AND IDEAL. (DOUBLE REFRAIN.) O VISIONS of salmon tremendous, Of trout of unusual weight, Of waters that wander as Ken does, Ye come through the Ivory Gate ! But the skies that bring never a " spate," But the flies that catch up in a thorn, But the creel that is barren of freight, Through the portals of horn ! O dreams of the Fates that attend us With prints in the earliest state, O bargains in books that they send us, Ye come through the Ivory Gate ! But the tome that has never a mate, But the quarto that's tattered and torn, And bereft of a title and date. Through the portals of horn ! 20 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. O dreams of the tongues that commend us, Of crowns for the laureate pate, Of a public to buy and befriend us, Ye come through the Ivory Gate ! But the critics that slash us and slate,^ But the people that hold us in scorn, But the sorrow, the scathe, and the hate, Through the portals of horn ! ENVOY. Fair dreams of things golden and great. Ye come through the Ivory Gate ; But the facts that are bleak and forlorn, Through the portals of horn ! 1 (( Slate" is a professional term for a severe criticism. Clearly the word is originally " slat," a narrow board of wood with which a person might be beaten. This was the note in earlier editions, but, in the Athenaum^ October 31, 1891, Mr. Skeat gives another derivation, and insists that from his verdict only dull and ignorant people can differ. OJ (ppovrXs ^linroK\ii5r). ( 21 ) RICH AND POOR. The nature of the Collector's craze, which com- pels Rich men and Poor men to desire the ver}' same books, has made it inevitable that the Rich shall set the fashion. The fashion for rare books, like the market price and the state of the odds on the Turf, " follows the money." A wealthy sportsman could make the darkest horse in his stable a favourite if he only backed him largely enough, and probably a millionaire could set up a taste for the First Editions of Mrs. Hannah More's works if he went about paying large sums for them. There are a few exceptions to this general rule that the Fashion follows the money. Sometimes the money follows what (still to use the sporting metaphor) we may call " the Talent." A clever man writes a bibliography of a certain author (having first 22 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. carefully provided himself with that author's works), and then the rich collector loses his head and invests heavily, perhaps, in Restif de la Bretonne. Nodier sometimes made efforts of this kind, but Nodier was often before his age. He possessed a beautiful example of Per- rault's "Contes de ma Mere I'Oye" (Paris, 1697), and he tried to write it into reputation. But in Nodier's time it did not sell for more than six or seven pounds. The price of this pleasant fountain-head of fairy tales is now, literally, beyond rubies. In recent catalogues of M. Damascene Morgand and of M. Fontaine, one finds no example of Perrault's first Paris editions. Both merchants offer the Dutch re- print at prices varying from £(So to £Zo} Brunet says, but perhaps too hastily, that the Amster- * " Perrault, Histoires ou confcs du tefnps passe, avec des moralitez. Par le fils de Monsieur Perrault, de I'Academie fran9oise. Suivant lacopie, a Paris (Amsterdam. Elzevier), 1697. Pet. in 12. front grav, et fig. mar. fil. dos orne, fil. tr. dor. (Trautz Bauzonnet.)" Apparently the real reading is Acadcinie Francois. It is curious to see how illustrations per- sistently survive in these old popular works. The frontispiece of Contes de ma Mere VOye^ the group of the old woman spin- ning and telling her tale by the cottage fire to the children and the cat, is only slightly modified in "Lumsden and Son's New Edition of Mother Goose. (Glasgow, sixpence.) Evihelished {sic) with Elegant Engravings." It is all very well to attribute the Dutch reprint to the Elzevirs, but M. Willems does not give it in his great work. RICH AND POOR. 23 dam is as rare as the original Paris edition. I have only seen one copy of the latter, in the private collection of a London Bookseller. Nodier did not succeed in making it fashionable in his own day ; he was less fortunate than Motteley, who found a quantity of uncut Elze- virs lurking in Hungary, and then wrote on them till they became a treasure. But Time has brought round his revenges, and Nodier is justified. Only the rich can buy the original Paris " Contes de ma Mere I'Oye" of 1697. Perchance some poor man may light on it in the Fourpenny Box, that Fortunatus's cap of the lucky, that casket of Pandora, which always keeps Hope at the bottom of its dusty rubbish. A pretty modern fairy tale might be written on the King with three sons who sent them forth at adventure, to find Perrault's first edition. One could not have a better text than this rare work for a sermon about the Books of the Rich Man and the Books of the Poor Man. This is a book that both desire, and, as virtue always dwells in patipertmi tabernce^ the Poor Man has the nobler reason for his choice. He wants Perrault for love of Perrault himself, for love of these old tales that come to us so prettily, the ancient nurse's story lisped out in 24 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. courtly language by Perrault's little boy, who signs himself de Votre Altesse Royale Le tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur, P. d'Armancour, in his dedication to Mademoiselle. But the wicked Rich Man merely desires this tiny tome because it is rare and precious. He has no thought of editing Perrault's "Contes." And it is an example of the touching fashion in which the Poor Man gleans in the Rich Man's harvest field, that he readily welcomes and cherishes quite a late copy of Mother Goose.^ This little shabby cropped copy in sheepskin has, at least, the ancient spelling, the old frontis- piece, the tiny rude vignettes on copper. Such were the children's books of our great-great- grandfathers ; here you see the king in bed, with eagles' heads on the bedposts ; here a wolf as big as the wolf Fenris of the Twilight of the Gods is about to swallow Red Riding Hood's grandmother at one gulp. Here is Puss in Boots, as tall as his Master, the Marquis ; and little Hop o' my Thumb, in a frock coat, is * ^'' Hist aires ou C antes de Terns passe^ Avec des Mai'alitez. Par Mr. Perrault. Nouvelle Edition augmentee d'une Nouvelle a la fin. A Amsterdam, Chez Jaques Desbordes, vis-a-vis la Porte de la Bourse. M. DCC. XXIX." So runs the title in black and red. RICH AND POOR. 2$ dragging the other famous boots from the sleep- ing Ogre, a most respectable-looking person ; and sister Anne is shrieking from the tower to her brothers that canter up in cocked hats even as Blue Beard is lifting his cruel sabre. This is not the Blue Rose of fairy Bibliography, but it has lived near the Blue Rose, and retains some- what of its morocco fragrance. Thus the heart of the Poor Man is glad, in the reflected joy of little lads and lasses who thumbed Mother Goose in Dutch nurseries long ago. But the Rich Man would throw the boiiquin into the waste-paper basket. As the old original Perrault, the relic, the sacred thing of Folk Lore is lost, like the grave of Arthur, the Rich Man has invented sub- stitutes, the Perrault of 1742 and the Perrault of 178 1. These and the reflections they suggest introduce us to the last and fiercest fancy of the great Bibliophile, the fancy for the illustrated French books of 1730- 1800. Here he is in an enchanted garden of Bibliomania, where we cannot follow him who have not the golden " key to the happy golden land." In the lyrical catalogue of the famous collec- tion, Bibliotheque d^itn Bibliophile, the delight of M. Eugene Paillet, and lately purchased by M. Damascene Morgand, we read M. Beraldi's 26 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. description of the Perrault of 1742. In M. Pail- let's copy of " Contes du Temps passe " ^ are inserted the tales of Griselidis, Peau d'Ane, and Les Souhaits Ridicules from the edition of 1781. M. Beraldi adds, " In Book collecting there are impenetrable mysteries." Yes, in the profligate collections of luxurious opulence ! " The edition of 1742 is the Right edition, with the plates in the freshest state. Yet it rules low {elle est a has prix)? On the other hand, the edition of 178 1 costs from ;^ 1 20 to ;^ 1 60. Why.? Because it is an unparalleled example of stinginess in the publisher Lamy. First, this economist used the plates of 1742. But he needed four head- pieces for the additional stories. He had only two engraved, and used both of them twice over. That is why the edition of J781 is such a re- markable book." This is, indeed, a mystery. The Rich Man pays £10 for a book in which the plates are fresh, and £\6o for a copy in w^hich they are not so fresh, because the Publisher was so stingy ! ^ ^ Par Perrault (Coustelier), in i2mo, figures de Seve. * From 200 to 250 francs. Cohen. ^ Nothing is more instructive, as to changes of taste, than a copy of an early edition of Brunet, say of 182 1. Herein we find that the original and the first Dutch edition of Perrault are not mentioned at all. These had no value in 1821. But the illustrated edition of 1781 is mentioned. In Large Paper, with RICH AND POOR. 27 The Poor Man is not likely to follow the Rich into excesses which perhaps justify the book- burning Commune. Indeed he cannot follow him at all in collecting the famed French illustrated books. For this there is an excellent reason. These works, copiously adorned with delicate (and indelicate) engravings on copper, are only desired when they are in the very prime of condition. They must be on the largest or rarest paper used when they were first sub- scribed for by the Parisian amateurs. They must be bound in morocco, by famed binders of old, chiefly Derome and Padeloup, and the binding must be bright and untarnished. Lately a London bookseller had a copy of the " Contes " of La Fontaine, the noted edition of 1762, for which Eisen designed vignettes (admired in spite of the absurd badness of the drawing in many cases), and for which Choffard produced really exquisite tail-pieces. This copy is clothed in old blue morocco, and the fly-leaf bears the ticket of Derome, which, for some unknown reason, is rarely found. The back is double proofs of the engravings, it sold for^40 francs. A copy on VELLUM, with the original drawings, actually fetched £2'], Where is this copy now ? Perhaps in the collection of the Due d'Aumale. It was in London, M. PortaHs says, that the book went so cheap in 1790. Perhaps it is in England still. Des- sinateurs d'llhisirations^ p. 629. 2S BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. tooled with a decorative pattern of birds and lyres, said to have been drawn by Gravelot. There is a luxurious rose-coloured silk for lin- ing, or doublure^ and the book was clearly a presentation copy, a type of the pretty book of pretty Madame du Barry's time. But, alas, this relic of gay pre-Revolutionary France had suffered, as Turner's water colours suffer, from the light of day. The famous " Derome blue " does not seem to stand the sunlight. It turns to a yellowish green in some cases, unless the book is kept in a drawer. This is presumably the reason why the Rich Man greatly desires the old French books in red morocco of the period, which tarnishes less than the greens and blues. Still, tarnished, or faded, or not, the "Contes" of 1762 are beyond the reach of the Poor Man. He will not find them on any stall, which, perhaps, is all the better for his morals. In the matter of these illustrated books, the Rich Man has sought out many devices. The books are made the victims of what a learned bookseller calls **The Higher Faking." To " fake " is to alter artificially, to improve mere- triciously : it is hard to find an English word for the cosmetics of the book trade. No doubt a book was originally published, as a rule, with but one set of engravings. Yet, even in the RICH AND POOR. 29 last century, cunning collectors would take a volume in sheets, and insert examples of the illustrations in every stage, even when they were what is technically styled eaiix-fortes — merely etched. When he had completed his set, the cunning contemporary buyer had it nobly bound by Derome or Tessier, perhaps he was even wise enough to bind in the Original Wrapper. The paper of these Original Wrappers is now worth more than bank notes. A copy of this kind, in old binding, is a thing beyond the hopes of men to middle fortune born. Occasionally a copy in wrapper is discovered, even now, and then it is treated by the v Rich Man in the same luxurious way. But here a question arises among amateurs. There is a famous book of the last century, ** Les Chansons de la Borde," 1773, 4 vol. in 4, "figures de Moreau et autres." M. Paillet succeeded in getting a copy cartonne, uncut. It had belonged to the great Renouard, to Aguillon, Gresy, and Gonzales. Each of these intelligent men had contributed to its charms. One had secured the proofs before letters of the first volume. Another, or rather the collective industry of all, had accumulated all the eaux-fortes. There are but four known examples of the portrait of Madame de la Borde in an interesting condition. 30 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN: One of these was obtained with four portraits of La Borde himself When M. Paillet had brought the book to this pitch of perfection, he took a grave resolu- tion. He had it bound I The whole world passionately canvassed the question, was M. Paillet wise? The binding was by Cuzin, red morocco, double \w\th. blue, tooled in imitation of the decorative designs on the panels of the Trianon. What of that? The freshness has departed, the virginal charm of the cartonnage can never be restored. Moreover, one portrait, the medallion of Marie Antoinette, is lacking. And some one else bought that rarest of rare engravings for six francs. This is what comes of " faking." Better were it to leave the book alone. But "the lozver faking," the patching and altering of books, is commonly a trick, and not a very worthy trick.^ ' Confession is good for man : let me confess that I have "faked" a book myself. It was an instance of the shabby follies of the Poor Man. It befell me once to purchase for a shilling " Moral Maxims and Reflections, written in French by the Duke of Rochefoucault. Now made English. London. Printed for M. Gillyflower in Westminster Hall. 1694." This is the first English Rochefoucauld. " Mrs, Behn, indeed, hath attempted part of it," says the translator, " but she seems not to have intended a perfect work, so much as the Entertaining her Self and her Lysaftde)-, with such Passages as were most applicable to her Darling Passion of Love." Next I bought a seedy copy RICH AND POOR. 31 The " Chansons de la Borde," which M. Paillet so audaciously got bound, was, in human memory, of no value. M. Paul Lacroix says that, in his time, Dorat's books mouldered on the qiiais in neglect. He himself bought the " Chansons," in old red morocco, for £2 ioj., and gave them to a belle ignorante, who handed them over to her child to scrawl upon. The old editions of Brunet place the book at about forty francs. Now the booksellers ask about £\6o. Of all poets, Dorat has been, posthumously, the luckiest. Born (says M. le Baron Roger Portalis) in 1734, he entered the Mousquetaires, where he was a literary musketeer, a kind of Aramis. He left the army, to please a pious aunt, and took to poetry which was not pious. He ruined himself gaily, and his prodigal taste for beautiful en- gravings in his books hastened his doom. Debts and disease killed him in 1780. He made a toilette two hours before his death, and expired, neatly shaven and freshly powdered, in his chair. Dorat's works were once in every Poor Man's reach. But, as Rich Men had not set the fashion, the Poor did not follow it. In 1821 the "Fables of the first edition of the "Maxims" (Paris, 1665), a copy lacking a quarter of a page, and having no frontispiece. I had the missing passage facsimiled, so that I don't know which it is myself, and I moved the English frontispiece into the French text, and bound it in ! 32 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Nouvelles," on Large Paper, with early proofs of the designs, sold for a louis. " Les Baisers " (Paris, 1770), ivith the original designs, brought nineteen francs ! But now it is, says M. jgeraldi, *'the thirteenth labour of Hercules" to collect the complete engravings, in good condition, and with the eanx-fortes. This passion leads men to excesses, like the old Dutch fancy for tulips. Foolish or not, the fashion, and his foresight of it, has gained Dorat a shadow of immortality. The epigram on him, untranslatable as it turns on a pun, is justified. Lorsque j'admire ces estampes, Ces vignettes, ces culs de lampe, Je crois voir en toi, pauvre auteur, Pardonne a mon humeur trop franche, Un malheureux navigateur Qui se sauve de planche en planche. A good illustration of the Rich Man's luck is M. Paillet's adventure with Fragonard's original designs for La Fontaine's " Contes " (Didot, Paris, 1795). M. Paillet acquired, for nothing, a beautifully written copy of La Fontaine's *' Contes ; " nay, he actually made iJ"200 by acquiring it. Habenti dabitur. These two beautiful quartos, bound in red morocco by Derome and copied out by Monchausse in red, RICH AND POOR. 33 green, and black ink, contain fifty-seven original designs by Fragonard. The work was written out for Bergeret, one of the Fermiers Generaux, who possessed the fifty-seven drawings. When M. Paillet procured these volumes, they were valued at ;^iooo. This does not seem dear ; but M. Paillet thought it was a good deal to give for a book — to give, that is, in solid cash. Besides, any one could write a cheque for ;£"iooo. The amateur sought another way, by the ancient system of exchange or barter. He sacrificed to M. Morgand, the bookseller, a " Faublas," with the original designs by Marillier and the suave binding (blue, doubled with orange) by Trautz. The "Contes" of Perrault (1781) were also oftered up, and M. Paillet was more readily consoled than Calypso for the departure of his "Telemaque" (first edition). The Heptameron of 1559, and the original comedies of Regnard, and the rarest romance of Restif {ijile damnum) all went the same way, and ;£"i20 in actual money was thrown in. TantcB molis erat — at such a sacrifice the amateur won his manuscript " Contes." They are not at all the kind of manuscript that St. Jerome would have sent to the chaste Furia, daughter of a Senator of Rome. But this is only half the story. M. Paillet acquired his original drawings by Moreau D 34 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. and his MSS. for five or six rare books and a cheque. But how did he make ^200 by the bargain? Why, M. Rouquette published new engravings of the designs, and the profit was about ;^36oo, of which M. Paillet got £\2QO. Indeed we may say, Habenti dabitiir. When had a poor collector such luck ? Such are the successes of Wealth. These brilliant books, all so fresh, so fair in morocco raiment, are the results of taste and labour as well as of money. M. Beraldi describes M. Paillet seated in his library, with the sheets of five unbound copies of one volume before him, comparing, selecting, examining with a micro- scope, page by page. The result is one perfect copy, to be perfectly bound, by Cuzin perhaps, and to be I e plus bel exeniplaire cojinii. These are not, after all, the enjoyments the poor collector envies most. He really wants to read his books, not that he could not have modern reprints, but he likes to see the famous masterpieces of old as Shakespeare saw them, when his quartos were cried at the doors of the Globe, as ** book o' the Play." Well, the poor collector can never have that pleasure, unless he visits Mr. Locker's library and wonderful array of Shakspeare quartos. But, here and there, a cropped, maimed relic reaches us. " Lucasta,' RICH AND POOR. 35 without the Illustrations ; Herrick, minus his portrait ; " Steps to the Temple," with a page missing.* How many of these twopenny trea- sures one possesses, relics a trifle apocryphal.^ The poor collector is apt to burden himself with these dilapidated relics out of pure senti- ' The Steps to the l^einple (London, 1646) I found in a box outside a shop in Holywell Street. It had belonged, apparently, to Collet, Crashaw's friend, and certainly to Collet's son, who had adorned the fly-leaf with an inscription in a beautiful hand, but in very bad Latin. As for Lucasta (1649), by Richard Love- lace, the second edition, perfect, is almost not to be found. The date is 1659. In Mr. Locker's catalogue the Rowfant copy is said to have an "old facsimile of Frontispiece by Hollar, after Francis Lovelace." But Mr. Locker has now supplied the genuine Hollar print, which he purchased, for a ransom, at the Addington sale, in 1886. Hollar collectors and other wild men have cut the portraits and prints out of most of the books of the Cavalier poets. * I believe no man, Rich or Poor, has a librar)' so rich in Imperfect works as the author of these pages. Two of my mutilated friends give me such concern, that I make bold to lay the case before the benevolent public. I possess (in green morocco by W. Pratt) an uncut copy of The Angler's Delight, by William Gilbert, Gent. London, 1676. But this copy has the Title page of the second portion of the same book, namely *' The Method of Fishing in Hackney River, with the Names of all the best Stands there." The only Stands there, now, are cab-stands : but no matter. If any bibliophile has the other part of the book, I will toss him for the whole ; and the same offer is made to the owner of volumes iv.-vii. of Les CEuvres de Monsieur de Molih-e. Paris, 1676. These volumes, of which I have i. ii. iii. must be somewhere: the name Or??ies(oti7i is written in an old hand on the title-pages. 36 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. ment. He can scarcely expect to buy an un- harmed example of a rare first edition, but he lives in hope of completing his own. Vain hope, pleasing aspirations ! The two halves of the imperfect work, like the two lovers that once were one body and soul, in the apologue of Aristophanes, wander round the world, and never meet again. And I think of these poor sundered volumes pained with a nostalgie, like that of the two obelisks in Theophile Gautier's poem ; or afflicted with "an intense yearning for something which the Soul desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presenti- ment." ■■• The tomes are divided for ever. One moiety may be in Paris, one on a stall in Cairo, like the monoliths estranged, and no more to be united than these obeltsques depareillcs. It is easy to give the poor collector good advice, to bid him never waste his substance on Imperfections, never spend his coppers on bouquinSy but wait, and " lie low " (like the would-be purchaser of Mark Twain's "celebrated Mexican plug "), till he has a chance of getting a real prize. This was the method of Balzac's fabled collector, Le Cousin Pons, but the wonderful story of his treasures is as great a * Aristophanes in the SymJ>osiuni, p. 192. RICH AND POOR. 37 myth as Poc's " Gold Beetle." It is one of Balzac's golden dreams. Moreover, the Poor collector has rarely the patience and self-denial for the task. He revels in brown shabby bouquiiis, for a reason the Rich Man would not suspect, namely for love of their contents. They are full of odd scraps of information, waifs of lore, sometimes, from the dead Court life of IMoliere's time. I have mislaid — for they lightly come and lightly go — a volume of courtly dialogues of 1670, in which an Abbe and a philosopher discourse on ghosts with a lady of Quality. This woman has had "an insolent person " beaten to death by her valets. She believes that she is always seeing his ghost, a belief out of which the Abbe and philosopher try to reason her, with arguments drawn from Science and Religion. No other punishment save what the Ghost inflicted, has dared to approach the grande dame de par le monde. What a world it was, when this kind of conversa- tion was not only possible, but probably was based on current gossip. It was the little black bouquin that gave one this peep into the age of Moliere, the age of Alceste, who might well despise his kind, and of pretty Celimene, who never, surely, would have acted like the cruel lady of Quality. 38 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN, The Poor Man, if he only wants to read, may actually enjoy the books which the wicked Rich keep idle in gilded saloons. For example, here is a volume for the student of Primitive Marriage: it is De veteri ritii NUPTIARUM &> jure CONNUBIORUM. Barnabas Bris- sonius, Antonius \^^ •r> • >Hotmanus. Franciscusj Aptid Francisciim Ilackium LVG. BATAVOR CIDIDCXLI. You buy it for fourpence, nay, for twopence, with its frontispiece of Adam flirting with Eve in Paradise. But, let it be in a morocco jacket, and the Bookseller shall charge you fifteen pounds, and attribute its binding to Padeloup. Surely better is sheepskin, for twopence, and content therewith, than, for ^15, Padeloup, — without his ticket ! So we might illustrate the joys of the trumpery collector. But Charles Lamb has made these things immortal in his prose, and Thackeray in his verse. This snug Utile chamber is crammed in all nooks With worthless old kfiicknacks, and silly old books, And foolish old odds and foolish old ends, Crack' d bargains from h-okers, cheap keepsakes from friends. RICH AND POOR. 39 Old armour^ prints, pictures, pipes, cJiifia {ail crack' d), Old rickety tables, and chairs broken back'd, A iwopenjiy treasury, ^vondrous to see. What matter ? ' Tis pleasant to you, friend, and vie} "All cracked " indeed, the cynic may cry, we and our treasures. But men may have their toys, like children ; and the Rich Man boasts his wax doll with moveable eyes, and the Poor Man has his fetish of rags tied up with a string, and is as happy as his opulent neighbour. The price of the original edition of Perrault's Tales is no longer far above rubies. A copy was sold by auction in Paris (March, 1872) for ;^85. Still the book is very rare. The public libraries of Paris possess but one example. ^ Ballads, by W. M. Thackeray. London : Bradbury and Evans, Bouverie Street. 1856. In the Origins 1 Wrapper ! 40 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. DORIS'S BOOKS. Doris, on your shelves I note Many a grave ancestral tome. These, perhaps, you have by rote ; These are constantly at home. Ah, but many a gap I spy Where Miss Broughton's novels lie ! Doris, there, behind the glass, On your Sheratonian shelves — Oft I see them as I pass — Stubbs and Freeman sun themselves. All unread I watch them stand ; That's Belinda in your hand ! Doris, I, as you may know, Am myself a Man of Letters, But my learned volumes go To the top shelf, like my betters, High — so high that Doris could Scarce get at them if she would ! DORIS'S BOOKS, 41 Doris, there be books of mine, That I gave you, wrote your name in, Tooled and gilded, fair and fine : Don't you ever peep the same in ? Yes, I see you've kept them — but, Doris, they are " Quite Uncut ! " Quite uncut, '' unopened " rather Are mine edifying pages, From this circumstance I gather That some other Muse engages, Doris, your misguided fancy: Yes, I thought so — reading Nancy. Well, when you are older, Doris, Wiser, too, you'll love my verses ; Celia likes them, and, what more is, Oft — to me — their praise rehearses. " Celiacs Thirty!' did I hear ? Doris, too, can be severe ! 42 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. THE ROWFANT BOOKS. BALLADE EN GUISE DE RONDEAU. The Rowfant books, how fair they shew, The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall, Print, autograph, portfolio! Back from the outer air they call, The athletes from the Tennis ball, This Rhymer from his rod and hooks, Would I could sing them one and all, The Rowfant books ! The Rowfant books ! In sun and snow They're dear, but most when tempests fall ; The folio towers above the row As once, o'er minor prophets, — Saul ! What jolly jest books and what small " Dear dumpy Twelves " to fill the nooks. You do not find on ever}- stall The Rowfant books ! THE ROWFAXT BOOKS. The Rowfant books ! These long ago Were chained within some College hall These manuscripts retain the glow Of many a coloured capital ; While yet the Satires keep their gall, While the Pastissier puzzles cooks, Theirs is a joy that does not pall, The Rowfant books ! ENVOI. The Rowfant books,- -ah magical As famed Armida's " golden looks," They hold the rhymer for their thrall, The Rowfant books. 45 44 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. TO F. L. I .MIND that Forest Shepherd's saw, For, when men preached of Heaven, quoth he, " It's a' that's bricht, and a' that's braw, But Bourhope's guid eneuch for me ! " Beneath the green deep-bosomed hills That guard Saint Mary's Loch it lies, The silence of the pastures fills That shepherd's homely paradise. Enough for him his mountain lake, His glen the burn went singing through, And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake. May well seem good enough for you. For all is old, and tried, and dear, And all is fair, and round about The brook that murmurs from the mere Is dimpled with the rising trout. TO F. L. 45 But when the skies of shorter days Are dark and all the ways are mire, How bright upon your books the blaze Gleams from the cheerful study fire. On quartos where our fathers read, Enthralled, the book of Shakespeare's play, On all that Poe could dream of dread, And all that Herrick sang of gay ! Fair first editions, duly prized. Above them all, methinks, I rate The tome where Walton's hand revised His wonderful receipts for bait ! Happy, who rich in toys like these Forgets a weary nation's ills, Who from his study window sees The circle of the Sussex hills ! 46 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS. There is, or used to be, a poem for infant minds of a rather Pharisaical character, which was popular in the nursery when I was a youngster. It ran something like this : — I thank my stars that I was born A little British child. Perhaps these were not the very words, but that was decidedly the sentiment. Look at the Japanese infants, from the pencil of the famous Hokusai. Though they are not British, were there ever two jollier, happier small creatures ? Did Leech, or Mr. Du Maurier, or Andrea della Robbia ever present a more delightful view of innocent, well-pleased childhood } Well, these Japanese children, if they are in the least in- clined to be timid or nervous, must have an awful time of it at night in the dark, and when they make that eerie " northwest passage " bed- 48 BOOK'S AND BOOKMEN. wards through the darkling house of which Mr. Stevenson sings the perils and the emotions. All of us who did not suffer under parents brought up on the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer have endured, in childhood, a good deal from ghosts. But it is nothing to what Japanese children bear ; for our ghosts are to the spectres of Japan as moonlight is to sunlight, or as water unto whisky. Personally I may say that few people have been plagued by the terror that walketh in darkness more than myself At the early age of ten I had the tales of the ingenious Mr. Edgar Poe and of Charlotte Bronte " put into my hands " by a cousin who had served as a Bashi Bazouk, and knew not the meaning of fear. But I did, and perhaps even Nelson would have found out " what fear was," or the boy in the German tale would have " learned to shiver," if he had been left alone to peruse "Jane Eyre," and the "Black Cat," and the " Fall of the House of Usher," as I was. Every night I expected to wake up in my coffin, having been prematurely buried ; or to hear sighs in the area, followed by light, un- steady footsteps on the stairs, and then to see a lady all in a white shroud, stained with blood and clay, stagger into my room, the victim of too rapid interment. As to the notion that my SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS. 49 respected kinsman had a mad wife concealed on the premises, and that a lunatic aunt, black in the face with suppressed mania, would burst into my chamber, it was comparatively a harm- less fancy, and not particularly disturbing. Between these and the "Yellow Dwarf," who (though only the invention of the Countess D'AuInoy) might frighten a nervous infant into hysterics, I personally had as bad a time of it in the night watches as any happy British child has survived. But our ogres are nothing to the bogies which make not only night but day terrible to the studious infants of Japan and China. Chinese ghosts are probably much the same as Japanese ghosts. The Japanese have borrowed most things, including apparitions and awesome sprites and grisly fiends, from the Chinese, and then have improved on the original model. Now we have a very full, complete, and horror- striking account of Chinese harnts (as the country people in Tennessee call them) from Mr. Herbert Giles, who has translated scores of Chinese ghost stories in his "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio " (De la Rue, 1880). Mr. Giles's volumes prove that China is the place for learned and active secretaries of the Psychical Society. 50 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Ghosts do not live a hole-and-corner life in China, but boldly come out and take their part in the pleasures and business of life. It has always been a question with me whether ghosts, in a haunted house, appear when there is no audience. What does the spectre in the tapes- tried chamber do when the house is not full, and no guest is put in the room to bury strangers in, the haunted room ? Does the ghost sulk and complain that there is " no house," and refuse to rehearse his little performance, in a con- scientious and disinterestedly artistic spirit, when deprived of the artist's true pleasure, the awaken- ing of sympathetic emotion in the mind of the spectator } We give too little thought and sympathy to ghosts, who in our old castles and country houses often find no one to appear to from year's end to year's end. Only now and then is a guest placed in the " haunted room." Then I like to fancy the glee of the lady in green, or the radiant boy, or the headless man, or the old gentleman in snuff-coloured clothes, as he, or she, recognises the presence of a spectator, and prepares to give his or her best effects in the familiar style. Now in China and Japan certainly a ghost does not wait till people enter the haunted room : a ghost, like a person of fashion, " goes A STORM-FIEND, 52 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN, everywhere." Moreover, he has this artistic excellence, that very often you don't know him from an embodied person. He counterfeits mortality so cleverly that he (the ghost) has been known to personate a candidate for honours, and pass an examination for him. A pleasing example of this kind, illustrating the limitations of ghosts, is told in Mr. Giles's book. A gentleman of Huai Shang, named Chou-t*ien-i, had arrived at the age of fifty, but his family consisted of but one son, a fine boy, "strangely averse from study," as if there were anything strange in tJiat. One day the son disappeared mysteriously, as people do from West Ham. In a year he came back, said he had been detained in a Taoist monastery, and, to all men's amaze- ment, took to his books. Next year he obtained his B.A. degree, a First Class. All the neigh- bourhood was overjoyed, for Huai Shang was like Pembroke College (Oxford), where, accord- ing to the poet, " First Class men are few and far between." It was who" should have the honour of giving his daughter as bride to this intellectual marvel. A very nice girl was selected, but most unexpectedly the B.A. would not marry. This nearly broke his father's heart. The old gentleman knew, according to Chinese belief, that if he had no grandchild there would SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS. 53 be no one in the next generation to feed his own ghost, and pay it all the little needful attentions. " Picture, then, the father naming and insisting on the day ; " till K'o-ch'ang, B. A., got up and ran away. His mother tried to detain him, when his clothes " came off in her hand," and the bachelor vanished ! Next day appeared the real flesh-and-blood son, who had been kidnapped and enslaved. The genuine K'o-ch'ang was overjoyed to hear of his ap- proaching nuptials. The rites were duly cele- brated, and in less than a year the old gentle- man welcomed his much-longed-for grandchild. But, oddly enough, K'o-ch'ang, though very jolly and universally beloved, was as stupid as ever, and read nothing but the sporting intelligence in the newspapers. It was now universally admitted that the learned K'o-ch'ang had been an impostor, a clever ghost. It follows that ghosts can take a very good degree ; but ladies need not be afraid of marrying ghosts, owing to the inveterate shyness of these learned spectres. The Chinese ghost is by no means always a malevolent person, as, indeed, has already been made clear from the affecting narrative of the ghost who passed an examination. Even the spectre which answers in China to the statue in " Don Juan," the statue which accepts invita- 54 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. tions to dinner, is anything but a malevolent guest. So much may be gathered from the story of Chu and Lu. Chu was an under- graduate of great courage and bodily vigour, but dull of wit. He was a married man, and his children (as in the old Oxford legend) often rushed into their mother's presence, shout- ing, " Mamma ! mamma ! papa's been plucked as^ain ! " Once it chanced that Chu was at a wane party, and the negus (a favourite beverage of the Celestials) had done its work. His young friends betted Chu a bird's-nest dinner that he would not go to the nearest temple, enter the room devoted to coloured sculptures representing the torments of Purgatory, and carry off the image of the Chinese judge of the dead, their Osiris or Rhadamanthus. Off went old Chu, and soon returned with the august effigy (which wore " a green face, a red beard, and a hideous expression") in his arms. The other men were frightened, and begged Chu to restore his worship to his place on the infernal bench. Before carrying back the worthy magistrate, Chu poured a libation on the ground and said, "Whenever your excellency feels so disposed, I shall be glad to take a cup of wine with you in a friendly way." That very night, as Chu was taking a stirrup cup before going to SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS. 55 bed, the ghost of the awful judge came to the door and entered. Chu promptly put the kettle on, mixed the negus, and made a night of it with the festive fiend. Their friendship was never interrupted from that moment. The judge even gave Chu a new heart (literally) whereby he was enabled to pass examinations ; for the heart, in China, is the seat of all the intellectual faculties. For Mrs. Chu, a plain woman with a fine figure, the ghost provided a new head, of a handsome girl recently slain by a robber. Even after Chu's death the genial spectre did not neglect him, but obtained for him an appointment as registrar in the next world, with a certain rank attached. The next world, among the Chinese, seems to be a paradise of bureaucracy, patent places, jobs, mandarins' buttons and tails, and, in short, the heaven of officialism. All civilised readers are acquainted with Mr. Stockton's humorous story of "The Transferred Ghost." In Mr. Stockton's view a man does not always get his own ghostship ; there is a vigorous competition among spirits for good ghostships, and a great deal of intrigue and party feeling. It may be long before a disembodied spectre gets any ghostship at all, and then, if he has little influence, he may be glad to take a chance of 56 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. haunting the Board of Trade, or the Post Office, instead of *^ walking " in the Foreign Office. One spirit may win a post as White Lady in the imperial palace, while another is put off with a position in an old college library, or perhaps has to follow the fortunes of some seedy " medium " through boarding-houses and third-rate hotels. Now this is precisely the Chinese view of the fates and fortunes of ghosts. Qtiisque siws patiinur manes. In China, to be brief, and to quote a ghost (who ought to know what he was speaking about), " supernaturals are to be found ever}-- where." This is the fact that makes life so puzzling and terrible to a child of a believing and trustful character. These Oriental bogies do not appear in the dark alone, or only in haunted houses, or at cross-roads, or in gloomy woods. They are everywhere : every man has his own ghost, every place has its peculiar haunt- ing fiend, every natural phenomenon has its in- forming spirit ; every quality, as hunger, greed, envy, malice, has an embodied visible shape prowling about seeking what it may devour. Where our science, for example, sees (or rather smells) sewer gas, the Japanese behold a slimy, meagre, insatiate wrath, crawling to devour the lives of men. Where we see a storm of snow. A SNOW BOGIE. 58 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. their livelier fancy beholds a comic snow-ghost, a queer, grinning old man under a vast umbrella. The illustrations in this paper are only a few specimens chosen out of many volumes of Japanese bogies. We have not ventured to copy the very most awful spectres, nor dared to be as horrid as vve can. These native draw- ings, too, are generally coloured regardless of expense, and the colouring is often horribly lurid and satisfactory. This embellishment, fortunately perhaps, we cannot reproduce. Meanwhile, if any child looks into this essay, let him (or her) not be alarmed by the pictures he beholds. Japanese ghosts do not live in this country ; there are none of them even at the Japanese Legation. Just as bears, lions, and rattlesnakes are not to be seriously dreaded in our woods and commons, so the Japanese ghost cannot breathe (any more than a slave can) in the air of England or America. We do not yet even keep any ghostly zoological garden in which the bogies of Japanese, Australians, Red Indians, and other distant peoples may be accommodated. Such an establishment is per- haps to be desired in the interests of psychical research, but that form of research has not yet been endowed by a cultivated and progressive government. SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS. 59 The first to attract our attention represents, as I understand, the common ghost, or simu- lacntni vulgare of psychical science. To this complexion must we all come, according to the best Japanese opinion. Each of us contains within him "somewhat of a shadowy being," like the spectre described by Dr. Johnson : something like the Egyptian " Ka," for which the curious may consult the works of Miss Amelia B. Edwards and other learned Oriental- ists. The most recent French student of these matters, the author of "L'Homme Posthume," is of opinion that we do not all possess this double, with its power of surviving our bodily death. He thinks, too, that our ghost, when it does survive, has but rarely the energy and enterprise to make itself visible to or audible by "shadow-casting men." In some extreme cases the ghost (according to our French authority, that of a disciple of M. Comte) feeds fearsomely on the bodies of the living. In no event does he believe that a ghost lasts much longer than a hundred years. After that it mizzles into spectre, and is resolved into its elements, whatever they may be. A somewhat similar and (to my own mind) probably sound theory of ghosts prevails among savage tribes, and among such peoples as the 6o BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. ancient Greeks, the modern Hindoos, and other ancestor worshippers. When feeding, as they all do, or used to do, the ghosts of the ancestral dead, they gave special attention to the claims of the dead of the last three generations, leaving ghosts older than the century to look after their own supplies of meat and drink. The negli- gence testifies to a notion that very old ghosts are of little account, for good or evil. On the other hand, as regards the longevity of spectres, we must not shut our eyes to the example of the bogie in ancient armour which appears in Glamis Castle, or to the Jesuit of Queen Elizabeth's date that haunts the library (and a very nice place to haunt : I ask no better, as a ghost in the Pavilion at Lord's might cause a scandal) of an English nobleman. With these i7istanti(e contradictories, as Bacon calls them, present to our minds, we must not (in the present condition of psychical research) dogma- tise too hastily about the span of life allotted to the sinmlacrtwi vulgare. Very probably his chances of a prolonged existence are in inverse ratio to the square of the distance of time which severs him from our modern days. No one has ever even pretended to see the ghost of an ancient Roman buried in these islands, still less of a Pict or Scot, or a Palaeolithic man. THE SIMULACRUM VULGARE. 62 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. welcome as such an apparition would be to many of us. Thus the evidence does certainly look as if there were a kind of statute of limita- tions among ghosts, which, from many points of view, is not an arrangement at which we should repine. The Japanese artist expresses his own sense of the casual and fluctuating nature of ghosts by drawing his spectre in shaky lines, as if the model had given the artist the horrors. This siimdacrum rises out of the earth like an exha- lation, and groups itself into shape above the spade with which all that is corporeal of its late owner has been interred. Please remark the uncomforted and dismal expression of the sijnu- lacnim. We must remember that the ghost or " Ka " is not the " soul," which has other destinies in the future world, good or evil, but is only a shadowy resemblance, condemned, as in the Egyptian creed, to dwell in the tomb and hover near it. The Chinese and Japanese have their own definite theory of the next world, and we must by no means confuse the eternal fortunes of the permanent, conscious, and responsible self, already inhabit- ing other worlds than ours, with the eccentric vagaries of the semi-material tomb-haunting larva, which so often develops a noisy and bear- A WELL AND WATER BOGIE. 64 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. fighting disposition quite unlike the character of its proprietor in life. The next bogie, so limp and washed-out as he seems, with his white, drooping dripping arms and hands, reminds us of that horrid French species of apparition, " la lavandiere de la nuit," who washes dead men's linen in the moonlit pools and rivers. Whether this simulacnini be meant for the spirit of the well (for everything has its spirit in Japan), or whether it be the ghost of some mortal drowned in the well, I cannot say with absolute certainty ; but the opinion of the learned tends to the former con- clusion. Naturally a Japanese child, when sent in the dusk to draw water, will do so with fear and trembling, for this limp, floppy apparition might scare the boldest. Another bogie, a terrible creation of fancy, I take to be a vampire, about which the curious can read in Dom Calmet, who will tell them how whole villages in Hungary have been depopulated by vam- pires ; or he may study in Fauriel's " Chansons de la Grece Moderne" the vampires of modern Hellas. Another plan, and perhaps even more satis- factory to a timid or superstitious mind, is to read in a lonely house at midnight a story named " Carmilla," printed in Mr. Sheridan Le RAISING THE WIND. 66 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Fanu's " In a Glass Darkly." That work will give you the peculiar sentiment of vampirism, will produce a gelid perspiration, and reduce the patient to a condition in which he will be afraid to look round the room. If, while in this mood, some one tells him Mr. Augustus Hare's story of Crooglin Grange, his education in the practice and theory of vampires will be complete, and he will be a very proper and well-qualified inmate of Earlswood Asylum. The most awful Japanese vampire, caught red-handed in the act, a hideous, bestial incarnation of ghoulishness, we have carefully refrained from reproducing. Scarcely more agreeable is the bogie, or witch, blowing from her mouth a malevolent exhala- tion, an embodiment of malignant and maleficent sorcery. The vapour which flies and curls from the mouth constitutes " a sending," in the technical language of Icelandic wizards, and is capable (in Iceland, at all events) of assuming the form of some detestable supernatural animal, to destroy the life of a hated rival. In the case of our last example it is very hard indeed to make head or tail of the spectre represented. Chinks and crannies are his domain ; through these he drops upon you. He is a merry but not an attractive or genial ghost. Where there are such "visions about" it may be admitted A CHINK AND CREVICa BOGIE. 68 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. that children, apt to believe in all such fancies, have a youth of variegated and intense misery, recurring with special vigour at bed-time. But we look again at our first picture, and hope and trust that Japanese boys and girls are as happy as these jolly little creatures appear. ( 69 ) GHOSTS IN THE LIBRARY. Suppose, when now the house is dumb, When lights are out, and ashes fall — Suppose their ancient owners come To claim our spoils of shop and stall, Ah me ! within the narrow hall How strange a mob would meet and go, What famous folk would haunt them all, Octavo, quarto, folio ! The great Napoleon lays his hand Upon this eagle-headed N, That marks for his a pamphlet banned By all but scandal-loying men, — A libel from some nameless d^ Of Frankfort, — Ar7iaud a la Sphere, Wherein one spilt, with venal pen. Lies o'er the loves of Moliere.^ ' Histoire des Intrigues Amour euses de Mclih-e, et de celles de mfemtne. {A la Sphere.) A Francfort, chez Frederic Arnaud, MDCXCVII. This anonymous tract has actually been attributed to Racine. The copy referred to is marked with a large N in red, with an eagle's head. 70 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Another shade — he does not see " Boney," the foeman of his race — The great Sir Walter, this is he With that grave homely Border face. He claims his poem of the chase That rang Benvoirlich's valley through ; And this^ that doth the lineage trace And fortunes of the bold Buccleuch ; ^ For these were his, and these he gave To one who dwelt beside the Peel, That murmurs with its tiny wave To join the Tweed at Ashestiel. Now thick as motes the shadows wheel, And find their own, and claim a share Of books wherein Ribou did deal, Or Roulland sold to wise Colbert.^ What famous folk of old are here ! A royal duke comes down to us, And greatly wants his Elzevir, His Pagan tutor, Lucius.^ ^ The Lady of the Lake ^ i8io. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1806. "To Mrs. Robert Laidlaw, Peel. From the Author." * Dictys Cretensis. Apud Lambertum Roulland. Lut. Paris., 1680. In red morocco, with the arms of Colbert, ' L. Annai Seneca Opera Omnia. Lug. Bat., apud Elzevirios. 1649. With book-plate of the Duke of Sussex. CnOSTS IN THE LIBRARY. 71 And Beckford claims an amorous Old heathen in morocco blue ; ^ And who demands Eobanus But stately Jacques Auguste de Thou ! ^ They come, the wise, the great, the true, They jostle on the narrow stair. The frolic Countess de Verrue, Lamoignon, ay, and Longepierre, The new and elder dead are there — The lords of speech, and song, and pen, Gambetta,^ Schlegel,^ and the rare Drummond of haunted Hawthcrnden. ^ Ah, and with those, a hundred more. Whose names, whose deeds, are quite forgot : Brave "Smiths" and "Thompsons" by the score, Scrawled upon many a shabby "lot." '*■ Stratonis Epigrammata. Altenburgi, 1764. Straton bound up in one volume with Epictetus ! From the Beckford library. 2 Opera Belli Eobani Hessi. Yellow morocco, with the first arms of De Thou. Includes a poem addressed " Lange, decus ;//>;i:'&liy!v^;';';i;7a^^^ ■■■: '^ i,. '10$ 'y^:mm