第 8 页

The passion for books, like other forms of desire, has its changesof fashion. It is not always easy to justify the caprices of taste.The presence or absence of half an inch of paper in the "uncut"margin of a book makes a difference of value that ranges from fiveshillings to a hundred pounds. Some books are run after becausethey are beautifully bound; some are competed for with equaleagerness because they never have been bound at all. Theuninitiated often make absurd mistakes about these distinctions.Some time ago the Daily Telegraph reproached a collector because hisbooks were "uncut," whence, argued the journalist, it was clear thathe had never read them. "Uncut," of course, only means that themargins have not been curtailed by the binders' plough. It is apoint of sentiment to like books just as they left the hands of theold printers,--of Estienne, Aldus, or Louis Elzevir.

It is because the passion for books is a sentimental passion thatpeople who have not felt it always fail to understand it. Sentimentis not an easy thing to explain. Englishmen especially find itimpossible to understand tastes and emotions that are not theirown,--the wrongs of Ireland, (till quite recently) the aspirationsof Eastern Roumelia, the demands of Greece. If we are to understandthe book-hunter, we must never forget that to him books are, in thefirst place, RELICS. He likes to think that the great writers whomhe admires handled just such pages and saw such an arrangement oftype as he now beholds. Moliere, for example, corrected the proofsfor this edition of the 'Precieuses Ridicules,' when he firstdiscovered "what a labour it is to publish a book, and how GREEN(NEUF) an author is the first time they print him." Or it may bethat Campanella turned over, with hands unstrung, and still brokenby the torture, these leaves that contain his passionate sonnets.Here again is the copy of Theocritus from which some pretty page mayhave read aloud to charm the pagan and pontifical leisure of Leo X.This Gargantua is the counterpart of that which the martyred Doletprinted for (or pirated from, alas!) Maitre Francois Rabelais. Thiswoeful ballade, with the woodcut of three thieves hanging from onegallows, came near being the "Last Dying Speech and Confession ofFrancois Villon." This shabby copy of 'The Eve of St. Agnes' isprecisely like that which Shelley doubled up and thrust into hispocket when the prow of the piratical felucca crashed into thetimbers of the Don Juan. Some rare books have these associations,and they bring you nearer to the authors than do the modernreprints. Bibliophiles will tell you that it is the early READINGSthey care for,--the author's first fancies, and those more hurriedexpressions which he afterwards corrected. These READINGS havetheir literary value, especially in the masterpieces of the great;but the sentiment after all is the main thing.

Other books come to be relics in another way. They are the copieswhich belonged to illustrious people,--to the famous collectors whomake a kind of catena (a golden chain of bibliophiles) through thecenturies since printing was invented. There are Grolier (1479-1565),--not a bookbinder, as an English newspaper supposed (probablywhen Mr. Sala was on his travels),--De Thou (1553-1617), the greatColbert, the Duc de la Valliere (1708-1780), Charles Nodier, a manof yesterday, M. Didot, and the rest, too numerous to name. Again,there are the books of kings, like Francis I., Henri III., and LouisXIV. These princes had their favourite devices. Nicolas Eve,Padeloup, Derome, and other artists arrayed their books in morocco,--tooled with skulls, cross-bones, and crucifixions for thevoluptuous pietist Henri III., with the salamander for Francis I.,and powdered with fleurs de lys for the monarch who "was the State."There are relics also of noble beauties. The volumes of Marguerited'Angouleme are covered with golden daisies. The cipher of MarieAntoinette adorns too many books that Madame du Barry might havewelcomed to her hastily improvised library. The three daughters ofLouis XV. had their favourite colours of morocco, citron, red, andolive, and their books are valued as much as if they bore the beesof De Thou, or the intertwined C's of the illustrious and ridiculousAbbe Cotin, the Trissotin of the comedy. Surely in all these thingsthere is a human interest, and our fingers are faintly thrilled, aswe touch these books, with the far-off contact of the hands of kingsand cardinals, scholars and coquettes, pedants, poets, andprecieuses, the people who are unforgotten in the mob that inhabiteddead centuries.

So universal and ardent has the love of magnificent books been inFrance, that it would be possible to write a kind of bibliomaniachistory of that country. All her rulers, kings, cardinals, andladies have had time to spare for collecting. Without going too farback, to the time when Bertha span and Charlemagne was an amateur,we may give a few specimens of an anecdotical history of Frenchbibliolatry, beginning, as is courteous, with a lady. "Can a womanbe a bibliophile?" is a question which was once discussed at theweekly breakfast party of Guilbert de Pixerecourt, the famous book-lover and playwright, the "Corneille of the Boulevards." Thecontroversy glided into a discussion as to "how many books a man canlove at a time;" but historical examples prove that French women(and Italian, witness the Princess d'Este) may be bibliophiles ofthe true strain. Diane de Poictiers was their illustriouspatroness. The mistress of Henri II. possessed, in the Chateaud'Anet, a library of the first triumphs of typography. Her tastewas wide in range, including songs, plays, romances, divinity; hercopies of the Fathers were bound in citron morocco, stamped with herarms and devices, and closed with clasps of silver. In the love ofbooks, as in everything else, Diane and Henri II. were inseparable.The interlaced H and D are scattered over the covers of theirvolumes; the lily of France is twined round the crescents of Diane,or round the quiver, the arrows, and the bow which she adopted asher cognisance, in honour of the maiden goddess. The books of Henriand of Diane remained in the Chateau d'Anet till the death of thePrincesse de Conde in 1723, when they were dispersed. The son ofthe famous Madame de Guyon bought the greater part of the library,which has since been scattered again and again. M. Leopold Double,a well-known bibliophile, possessed several examples. {15}

Henry III. scarcely deserves, perhaps, the name of a book-lover, forhe probably never read the works which were bound for him in themost elaborate way. But that great historian, Alexandre Dumas,takes a far more friendly view of the king's studies, and, in 'LaDame de Monsoreau,' introduces us to a learned monarch. Whether hecared for the contents of his books or not, his books are among themost singular relics of a character which excites even morbidcuriosity. No more debauched and worthless wretch ever filled athrone; but, like the bad man in Aristotle, Henri III. was "full ofrepentance." When he was not dancing in an unseemly revel, he wason his knees in his chapel. The board of one of his books, of whichan engraving lies before me, bears his cipher and crown in thecorners; but the centre is occupied in front with a picture of theAnnunciation, while on the back is the crucifixion and the breedingheart through which the swords have pierced. His favourite devicewas the death's-head, with the motto Memento Mori, or Spes mea Deus.While he was still only Duc d'Anjou, Henri loved Marie de Cleves,Princesse de Conde. On her sudden death he expressed his grief, ashe had done his piety, by aid of the petits fers of the bookbinder.Marie's initials were stamped on his book-covers in a chaplet oflaurels. In one corner a skull and cross-bones were figured; in theother the motto Mort m'est vie; while two curly objects, which didduty for tears, filled up the lower corners. The books of HenriIII., even when they are absolutely worthless as literature, sellfor high prices; and an inane treatise on theology, decorated withhis sacred emblems, lately brought about 120 pounds in a Londonsale.

Francis I., as a patron of all the arts, was naturally an amateur ofbindings. The fates of books were curiously illustrated by thestory of the copy of Homer, on large paper, which Aldus, the greatVenetian printer, presented to Francis I. After the death of thelate Marquis of Hastings, better known as an owner of horses than ofbooks, his possessions were brought to the hammer. With theinstinct, the flair, as the French say, of the bibliophile, M.Ambroise Firmin Didot, the biographer of Aldus, guessed that themarquis might have owned something in his line. He sent his agentover to England, to the country town where the sale was to be held.M. Didot had his reward. Among the books which were dragged out ofsome mouldy store-room was the very Aldine Homer of Francis I., withpart of the original binding still clinging to the leaves. M. Didotpurchased the precious relic, and sent it to what M. Fertiault (whohas written a century of sonnets on bibliomania) calls the hospitalfor books.

Le dos humide, je l'eponge;Ou manque un coin, vite une allonge,Pour tous j'ai maison de sante.

M. Didot, of course, did not practise this amateur surgery himself,but had the arms and devices of Francis I. restored by one of thosefamous binders who only work for dukes, millionnaires, andRothschilds.

During the religious wars and the troubles of the Fronde, it isprobable that few people gave much time to the collection of books.The illustrious exceptions are Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin, whopossessed a "snuffy Davy" of his own, an indefatigable prowler amongbook-stalls and dingy purlieus, in Gabriel Naude. In 1664, Naude,who was a learned and ingenious writer, the apologist for "great mensuspected of magic," published the second edition of his 'Avis pourdresser une Bibliotheque,' and proved himself to be a true lover ofthe chase, a mighty hunter (of books) before the Lord. Naude'sadvice to the collector is rather amusing. He pretends not to caremuch for bindings, and quotes Seneca's rebuke of the Romanbibliomaniacs, Quos voluminum suorum frontes maxime placenttitulique,--who chiefly care for the backs and lettering of theirvolumes. The fact is that Naude had the wealth of Mazarin at hisback, and we know very well, from the remains of the Cardinal'slibrary which exist, that he liked as well as any man to see hiscardinal's hat glittering on red or olive morocco in the midst ofthe beautiful tooling of the early seventeenth century. When oncehe got a book, he would not spare to give it a worthy jacket.Naude's ideas about buying were peculiar. Perhaps he sailed rathernearer the wind than even Monkbarns would have cared to do. Hisfavourite plan was to buy up whole libraries in the gross,"speculative lots" as the dealers call them. In the second place,he advised the book-lover to haunt the retreats of Librairesfripiers, et les vieux fonds et magasins. Here he truly observesthat you may find rare books, broches,--that is, unbound and uncut,--just as Mr. Symonds bought two uncut copies of 'Laon and Cythna' ina Bristol stall for a crown. "You may get things for four or fivecrowns that would cost you forty or fifty elsewhere," says Naude.Thus a few years ago M. Paul Lacroix bought for two francs, in aParis shop, the very copy of 'Tartuffe' which had belonged to LouisXIV. The example may now be worth perhaps 200 pounds. But we aredigressing into the pleasures of the modern sportsman.

It was not only in second-hand bookshops that Naude hunted, butamong the dealers in waste paper. "Thus did Poggio find Quintilianon the counter of a wood-merchant, and Masson picked up 'Agobardus'at the shop of a binder, who was going to use the MS. to patch hisbooks withal." Rossi, who may have seen Naude at work, tells us howhe would enter a shop with a yard-measure in his hand, buying books,we are sorry to say, by the ell. "The stalls where he had passedwere like the towns through which Attila or the Tartars had swept,with ruin in their train,--ut non hominis unius sedulitas, sedcalamitas quaedam per omnes bibliopolarum tabernas pervasissevideatur!" Naude had sorrows of his own. In 1652 the Parliamentdecreed the confiscation of the splendid library of Mazarin, whichwas perhaps the first free library in Europe,--the first that wasopen to all who were worthy of right of entrance. There is apainful description of the sale, from which the book-lover willavert his eyes. On Mazarin's return to power he managed to collectagain and enrich his stores, which form the germ of the existingBibliotheque Mazarine.

Among princes and popes it is pleasant to meet one man of letters,and he the greatest of the great age, who was a bibliophile. Theenemies and rivals of Moliere--De Vise, De Villiers, and the rest--are always reproaching him--with his love of bouquins. There issome difference of opinion among philologists about the derivationof bouquin, but all book-hunters know the meaning of the word. Thebouquin is the "small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold,"which lies among the wares of the stall-keeper, patient in rain anddust, till the hunter comes who can appreciate the quarry. We liketo think of Moliere lounging through the narrow streets in theevening, returning, perhaps, from some noble house where he has beenreading the proscribed 'Tartuffe,' or giving an imitation of therival actors at the Hotel Bourgogne. Absent as the contemplateuris, a dingy book-stall wakens him from his reverie. His laceruffles are soiled in a moment with the learned dust of ancientvolumes. Perhaps he picks up the only work out of all his librarythat is known to exist,--un ravissant petit Elzevir, 'De ImperioMagni Mogolis' (Lugd. Bat. 1651). On the title-page of this tinyvolume, one of the minute series of 'Republics' which the Elzevirspublished, the poet has written his rare signature, "J. B. P.Moliere," with the price the book cost him, "1 livre, 10 sols." "Iln'est pas de bouquin qui s'echappe de ses mains," says the author of'La Guerre Comique,' the last of the pamphlets which flew aboutduring the great literary quarrel about "L'Ecole des Femmes."Thanks to M. Soulie the catalogue of Moliere's library has beenfound, though the books themselves have passed out of view. Thereare about three hundred and fifty volumes in the inventory, butMoliere's widow may have omitted as valueless (it is the foible ofher sex) many rusty bouquins, now worth far more than their weightin gold. Moliere owned no fewer than two hundred and forty volumesof French and Italian comedies. From these he took what suited himwherever he found it. He had plenty of classics, histories,philosophic treatises, the essays of Montaigne, a Plutarch, and aBible.