The Book-Hunter
near of kin his gentle facility may have caused keener pangs than others
give by cruelty and tyranny. The other, bright-eyed, healthy, strong,
and keen-tempered--the best fighter and runner and leaper in the
school--the dare-devil who was the leader in every row--took to Greek
much about the time when his companion took to drinking, got a
presentation, wrote some wonderful things about the functions of the
chorus, and is now on the fair road to a bishopric.
[Footnote 50: Take, for instance, the announcement of the wants of an
affluent and pious elderly lady, desirous of having the services of a
domestic like-minded with herself, who appeals to the public for a
"groom to take charge of two carriage-horses of a serious turn of mind."
So also the simple-hearted innkeeper, who founds on his "limited charges
and civility;" or the description given by a distracted family of a
runaway member, who consider that they are affording valuable means for
his identification by saying, "age not precisely known--but looks older
than he is."]
Next arises the vision of "the big boy," the lout--the butt of every
one, even of the masters, who, when any little imp did a thing well,
always made the appropriate laudation tell to the detriment of the big
boy, as if he were bound to be as superfluous in intellect as in flesh.
He has sufficiently dinned into him to make him thoroughly modest, poor
fellow, how all great men were little. Napoleon was little, so was
Frederic the Great, William III., the illustrious Conde, Pope, Horace,
Anacreon, Campbell, Tom Moore, and Jeffrey. His relations have so
thoroughly given in to the prejudice against him, that they get him a
cadetship because he is fit for nothing at home; and now, years
afterwards, the newspapers resound with his fame--how, when at the
quietest of all stations when the mutiny suddenly broke out in its most
murderous shape, and even experienced veterans lost heart, he remained
firm and collected, quietly developing, one after another, resources of
which he was not himself aware, and in the end putting things right,
partly by stern vigour, but more by a quiet tact and genial appreciation
of the native character. But what has become of the Dux--him who, in the
predictions of all, teachers and taught, was to render the institution
some day illustrious by occupying the Woolsack, or the chief place at
the Speaker's right hand? A curious destiny is his: at a certain point
the curve of his ascent was as it were truncated, and he took to the
commonest level of ordinary life. He may now be seen, staid and sedate
in his walk, which brings him, with a regularity that has rendered him
useful to neighbours owning erratic watches, day by day to a lofty
three-legged stool, mounted on which, all his proceedings confirm the
high character retained by him through several years for the neatness of
his handwriting, and especially for his precision in dotting his i's and
stroking his t's.
This is all along of the use which the reflective man may make of an old
advertisement. If it be old, the older the better--the more likely is it
to contain matter of curious interest or instruction about the ways of
men. To show this, I reprint two advertisements from British newspapers.
From the Public Advertiser of 28th March 1769.
"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK GIRL, the property of J. B----, eleven years
of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and
speaks English perfectly well: is of an excellent temper, and
willing disposition.
"Inquire of Mr Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church
in the Strand."
From the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 18th April 1768.
"A BLACK BOY TO SELL.
"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK BOY, with long hair, stout made, and
well-limbed--is good tempered, can dress hair, and take care of a
horse indifferently. He has been in Britain nearly three years.
"Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for L40. He
belongs to Captain ABERCROMBIE at Broughton.
"This advertisement not to be repeated."
There was at that time probably more of this description of property in
Britain than in Virginia. It had become fashionable, as one may see in
Hogarth. Such advertisements--they were abundant--might furnish an apt
text on which a philosophical historian could speculate on the probable
results to this country, had not Mansfield gone to the root of the
matter by denying all property in slaves.
So much for the chances which still remain to the devourer of books, if,
after having consumed all the solid volumes within his reach, he should
be reduced to shreds and patches of literature,--like a ship's crew
having resort to shoe-leather and the sweepings of the locker.
Pretenders.
But now to return to the point whence we started--the disposition, and
almost the necessity, which the true enthusiast in the pursuit feels to
look into the soul, as it were, of his book, after he has got possession
of the body. When he is not of the omnivorous kind, but one who desires
to possess a particular book, and, having got it, dips into the contents
before committing it to permanent obscurity on his loaded shelves, there
is, as we have already seen, a certain thread of intelligent
association linking the items of his library to each other. The
collector knows what he wants, and why he wants it, and that _why_ does
not entirely depend on exteriors, though he may have his whim as to that
also.
He is a totally different being from the animal who goes to all sales,
and buys every book that is cheap. That is a painfully low and
grovelling type of the malady; and, fortunately for the honour of
literature, the bargain-hunter who suffers under it is not in general a
special votary of books, but buys all bargains that come in his
way--clocks, tables, forks, spoons, old uniforms, gas-meters, magic
lanterns, galvanic batteries, violins (warranted real Cremonas, from
their being smashed to pieces), classical busts (with the same testimony
to their genuineness), patent coffee-pots, crucibles, amputating knives,
wheel-barrows, retorts, cork-screws, boot-jacks, smoke-jacks,
melon-frames, bath-chairs, and hurdy-gurdies. It has been said that
once, a coffin, made too short for its tenant, being to be had an
undoubted bargain, was bought by him, in the hope that, some day or
other, it might prove of service in his family. His library, if such it
may be termed, is very rich in old trade-directories, justices of peace
and registers of voters, road-books, and other useful manuals; but there
are very learned books in it too. That clean folio Herodotus was
certainly extremely cheap at half-a-crown; and you need not inform him
that the ninth book is wanting, for he will never find that out. The day
when he has discovered that any book has been bought by another person,
a better bargain than his own copy, is a black one in his calendar; but
he has a peculiar device for getting over the calamity by bringing down
the average cost of his own copy through fresh investments. Having had
the misfortune to buy a copy of Goldsmith's History of England for five
shillings, while a neighbour flaunts daily in his face a copy obtained
for three, he has been busily occupied in a search for copies still
cheaper. He has now brought down the average price of his numerous
copies of this more agreeable than accurate work to three shillings and
twopence, and hopes in another year to get below the three shillings.
Neither is the rich man who purchases fine and dear books by deputy to
be admitted within the category of the genuine book-hunter. He must hunt
himself--must actually undergo the anxiety, the fatigue, and, so far as
purse is concerned, the risks of the chase. Your rich man, known to the
trade as a great orderer of books, is like the owner of the great
game-preserve, where the sport is heavy butchery; there is none of the
real zest of the hunter of the wilderness to be had within his gates.
The old Duke of Roxburghe wisely sank his rank and his wealth, and
wandered industriously and zealously from shop to stall over the world,
just as he wandered over the moor, stalking the deer. One element in the
excitement of the poorer book-hunter he must have lacked--the feeling of
committing something of extravagance--the consciousness of parting with
that which will be missed. This is the sacrifice which assures the
world, and satisfies the man's own heart, that he is zealous and earnest
in the work he has set about. And it is decidedly this class who most
read and use the books they possess. How genial a picture does Scott
give of himself at the time of the Roxburghe sale--the creation of
Abbotsford pulling him one way, on the other his desire to accumulate a
library round him in his Tusculum. Writing to his familiar Terry, he
says, "The worst of all is, that while my trees grow and my fountain
fills, my purse, in an inverse ratio, sinks to zero. This last
circumstance will, I fear, make me a very poor guest at the literary
entertainment your researches hold out for me. I should, however, like
much to have the treatise on Dreams by the author of the New Jerusalem,
which, as John Cuthbertson, the smith, said of the minister's sermon,
'must be neat wark.' The loyal poems by N.T. are probably by poor Nahum
Tate, who was associated with Brady in versifying the Psalms, and more
honourably with Dryden in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. I
never saw them, however, but would give a guinea or thirty shillings for
the collection."
One of the reasons why Dibdin's expatiations among rare and valuable
volumes are, after all, so devoid of interest, is, that he occupied
himself in a great measure in catering for men with measureless purses.
Hence there is throughout too exact an estimate of everything by what it
is worth in sterling cash, with a contempt for small things, which has
an unpleasant odour of plush and shoulder-knot about it. Compared with
dear old Monkbarns and his prowlings among the stalls, the narratives of
the Boccaccio of the book-trade are like the account of a journey that
might be written from the rumble of the travelling chariot, when
compared with the adventurous narrative of the pedestrian or of the
wanderer in the far East. Everything is too comfortable, luxurious,
and easy--russia, morocco, embossing, marbling, gilding--all crowding
on one another, till one feels suffocated with riches. There is a
feeling, at the same time, of the utter useless pomp of the whole thing.
Volumes, in the condition in which he generally describes them, are no
more fitted for use and consultation than white kid gloves and silk
stockings are for hard work. Books should be used decently and
respectfully--reverently, if you will; but let there be no toleration
for the doctrine that there are volumes too splendid for use, too fine
almost to be looked at, as Brummel said of some of his Dresden china.
That there should be little interest in the record of rich men buying
costly books which they know nothing about and never become acquainted
with, is an illustration of a wholesome truth, pervading all human
endeavours after happiness. It is this, that the active, racy enjoyments
of life--those enjoyments in which there is also exertion and
achievement, and which depend on these for their proper relish--are not
to be bought for hard cash. To have been to him the true elements of
enjoyment, the book-hunter's treasures must not be his mere property,
they must be his achievements--each one of them recalling the excitement
of the chase and the happiness of success. Like Monkbarns with his
Elzevirs and his bundle of pedlar's ballads, he must have, in common
with all hunters, a touch of the competitive in his nature, and be able