Take, for example, Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 1621; the first folio Shakespeare, 1623; Milton's _Lycidas_, _Poems_, _Paradise Lost_, _Paradise Regained_, in the _editiones principes_; the works of the minor poets, Suckling, Carew, Shirley, Davenant; Walton's _Angler_, 1653; Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, 1678; the Kilmarnock Burns, 1786; and many first editions of Wordsworth, Lamb, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, Tennyson.

Every season swells the roll of existing copies. On the contrary, Spenser's _Faery Queen_, Books i.-iii., 1590, and Milton's _Comus_, 1634, are authentically scarce, the former especially so in fine state; and the same may be predicated of Lovelace's _Lucasta_ (the two parts complete). But the real meaning of the rarity of the other books above specified--and the list might be readily enlarged--is that, although the copies are numerous enough, the taste for capital productions has increased within a few years out of proportion to the recovery of new or unknown examples.

We are finding frequent occasion to cite works of foreign origin, which are more or less habitually taken up into our own collections by miscellaneous or general buyers; and there is among these one which forms a signal ill.u.s.tration of the fallacy of uniqueness. It is the Gutenberg or Mazarin Bible. Scarcely a library of the first rank occurs here or elsewhere without offering a copy; and we are persuaded that at least forty must exist, either on paper or on vellum, throughout the world. The book occupies the same bibliographical position as the first folio Shakespeare, the first edition of Walton's _Angler_, and the first Burns; it tends to grow commoner, yet, so far, not cheaper.

There are other books which, as it may be more readily understood, are rare without being valuable, and of which such of the commercial world as has it not in its power to expend large amounts on individual purchases, naturally seeks to make the most. It was almost amusing, some time since, to note the entries in some of the booksellers' lists under "Black Letter," "Gothic Letter," "Rare Law," "Curious Early English," and so forth; and the names of Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and other ancient printers were freely introduced to help off a rather lame foreigner, who was alleged to have been professionally a.s.sociated with one or the other of them. If the bookseller knows the book-buyer, it is highly requisite that the latter should study what he is going to buy.

Ill.u.s.trations are not wanting of the loss of untold treasure through a medium more fatal than any other--through exhaustive popular demand.

Entire and large impressions of books, pamphlets, and broadsides have succ.u.mbed, not to the sacrilegious hand of the spoiler, but to the too affectionate, and not too cleanly, fingering of the mult.i.tude of men and women who read and then cast the sources of entertainment away. If we remember that certain of the Bibles ordered to be kept in churches for general use chiefly survive in crumbling fragments, or at best woefully dilapidated copies, we cease to be surprised at the easy prey which more fugitive compositions have formed to a succession of careless and indifferent owners. The illiterate inscriptions on many books, which have thus become valuable, point to the hands through which they have pa.s.sed, and tell a story of prolonged neglect, too often culminating in appropriation to domestic requirements.

It is, anyhow, perfectly undeniable that of the miscellaneous early literature of all countries, the proportion which exists is in very numerous instances no more than a simple voucher for the work having pa.s.sed the press. A single copy has formerly occurred or occurs fortuitously, and no duplicate can be cited. This is the position of thousands of volumes, and of many it is the chief merit.

Infinitely numerous are the strange tales, sometimes drawing up the moisture into the mouth, sometimes sufficient to make one's hair rigid, of books of price hung up for use at country railway stations, or employed by a tobacconist to wrap up his pennyworths of snuff, or converted by a lady of quality into curl-papers. What has become of the Caxtons sent over to the Netherlands in the last century by a confiding English gentleman their owner, for the inspection of a nameless Mynheer his friend, who, when he was invited to restore them, lamented their disappearance in a fire?

There was beyond a question an epoch, and a prolonged one, when the mill shared with household demands an immense quota of the cast-off literature of these islands. One of our early collectors of Caxtons, Ratcliff, whose books were sold in 1776, acquired his taste (one in a thousand) through his vocation as a chandler or storekeeper in the Borough. We may surmise how his Caxtons came to him, and at what rates!

These episodes appertain to the romantic and speculative aspect of book-collecting; but they really have another side. Here, at a time when the first-fruits of the English press were unregarded, we find a man of Ratcliff's status acquiring thirty Caxtons. He lived just to see a rise in their value, yet a very slight and fluctuating one; for at last he went into the open market and purchased a few lots at West's auction in 1773, and the Caxtons thus obtained re-sold after Ratcliff's death in one or two cases at a lower rate. He had inflated the market; the compet.i.tors were not more than two or three. But the time was soon to come when such persons could no longer afford to hold this kind of property--when it became fashionable for dukes and earls and men of large property to make our early typography an object of research; and so it continued down to the present time, till the agricultural depression arrived to create another organic change, and to direct these, as well as other costly luxuries, into new channels.

Not the chandler, or the Government official, or the private gentleman of modest means, but the great manufacturer or the merchant-prince entered on the scene, and wrested from the landowner his long-cherished possessions. The West and Ratcliff sales (1773-76) were the two golden opportunities, however, of which the advisers of George III. wisely availed themselves to purchase volumes at what we have been taught to consider nominal prices; and there they are in the British Museum to-day, a recollection of one of the better traits in the character of that prince. When we say that the market for Caxtons in 1776 was beginning to expand, we mean that the day for getting such things for a few pence or a shilling or two had gone by. Here, for example, are some of the quotations from the Ratcliff auction:--

s. d.

Chronicles of Englande, fine copy, 1480 5 5 0 Doctrinal of Sapyence, 1489 8 8 0 The Boke called Cathon, 1483 5 5 0 Tullius de Senectute, in Englyshe, 1481 14 0 0 The Game and Playe of Chesse 16 0 0 The Boke of Jason 5 10 0 Legenda Aurea; or, the Golden Legend, 1483 9 15 0

These figures make even some of those in the West auction, 1773, appear by comparison rather extravagant. For his Majesty's agent at the latter gave as much as 14 for the romance of _Paris and Vienne_, from the Caxton press, 1485. True, it seems to be unique, and might to-day require its purchaser, if it were for sale, to have 500 in his pocket or at his bank to secure it. Yet strange events still continue to happen from time to time. Not Caxtons nor Shakespeares, but excellent books which command prices in the open market, are yet occasionally given away.

A case occurred in Lincolnshire about a year ago, when a library of some 2500 volumes was sold by an intelligent provincial auctioneer _al fresco_ in the dogdays, and put up in bundles, nearly all of which were knocked down at the first bid--_threepence_. Say, 150 lots at 3d.

per lot = 1 17s. 6d. for the whole. There must have been an _entente cordiale_ among those in attendance, the gentleman in the rostrum inclusive.

These instances of misdirection, which have been in times past more numerous than now, although two of the most recent and most signal have occurred in the same county (Lincolnshire), inevitably tend to the destruction of copies, and so far ill.u.s.trate our remarks on the causes of the gradual disappearance of books during former periods.

There are, however, circ.u.mstances under which prices are depressed by collusion, as where a first folio Shakespeare was knocked done for 20 in an auction-room not five hundred miles from Fleet Street; or by an accident, as when the original _Somers Tracts_, in thirty folio volumes, comprising unique _Americana_, fetched _bona fide_ under the hammer only 61. A single item was re-sold for sixty guineas, and would now bring thrice that amount. What a game of chance this book traffic is!

Imperfect Books, as distinguished from Fragments, const.i.tute a rather complex and troublesome portion and aspect of collecting. They are susceptible of cla.s.sification into books--(1) Of which no perfect copy is known; (2) Of which none is known outside one or two great libraries; (3) Of which even imperfect examples, as of a specimen of early typography or of engraving, are valuable and interesting; (4) Of which copies are more or less easily procurable. It is only the last division at which an amateur of any pretensions and resources draws the line. With the other contingencies our keenest and richest book-hunters and our most important public collections have been and are obliged to be satisfied. When it is a question of a unique, or almost unique, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, or Pynson, or quite as much of a volume from the London, St. Albans, Tavistock, York, or Edinburgh presses, what is to be done? The object, no doubt, _laisse a desirer_; but where is another? This sentiment and spirit operated twice, as we have elsewhere noted, within three months in 1896 in the case of two incomplete copies of the first edition by Caxton of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_. But for the defective copy of a common book some find an apology and a home: they cannot afford a better, or they require it for a special purpose. The upshot is, that for every old volume there is a customer, who is pleased with his acquisition according to his light; and we have met with such as seemed disposed to view the missing of damaged leaves as negative evidence of antiquity and genuineness.

The bystander who has had the benefit of as long an innings as the present writer, witnesses perpetual changes and vicissitudes of sentiment; and from one point of view, at all events, the minute details, into which the too generally despised bibliographer enters, are valuable, because they present to us, in lists of editions of authors and books published from age to age, the astonishing evidence of mutable popularity or acceptability. There is a feature, which is almost amusing, in the ideas and estimates expressed of many works by our earlier antiquaries, when we look to-day at their position and rank. If we turn over the pages of Hearne's _Diary_, for instance, we constantly meet with accounts of literary curiosities and rarities, which we regard with different eyes by virtue of our enlarged information, while thousands of really valuable items--valuable on some score or other--go there unnoted, although copies of them must have pa.s.sed through the sales, even more frequently than at present.

The close of the nineteenth century has brought these matters to a truer level. We are better able to gauge the survival of books and editions.

Even in the sometimes tedious enumeration of editions of early books bibliography confers a sort of benefit, for it demonstrates the longevity in public estimation and demand of a host of books now neglected, yet objects of interest and utility to many successive ages.

We have seen so many cranks and fancies successively take possession of the public. Early typography; early poetry and romances; books of hours; books of emblems; Roman Catholic literature; liturgies; Bewick; Bartolozzi; the first edition (which was sometimes equally the last); books on vellum, on India-paper, or on yellow or some other bizarre colour or material, debarring perusal of the publication; copies with remarkable blunders or with some of the text inadvertently omitted--all these and a legion of others have had their day; and to some of them it happens that they drop out of view for a season, and then reappear for a second or third brief term of life and favour; and therefore, it being so, who can have the heart to blame the parties that in the exercise of their vocation make hay while the sun shines?

There is one personage, and one alone, who makes it whether or no, summer and winter, to wit, the auctioneer; his commission is a.s.sured; on what or from whom he gets it he cares not. He cheerfully leaves the adjustment of accounts to gentlemen outside.

The circ.u.mstances under which a new departure takes place, often without much previous warning, in the book-market, and disturbs the calculations of holders of certain cla.s.ses of stock, are infinitely varied. The bibliographical barometer is surprisingly sensitive, and the slightest change of fashion in the older literature, and even in those sections of the more recent which embrace acknowledged rarities, is instantaneously felt. In some branches of collecting, and where the prices of commodities are such as to exclude all but a knot of wealthy amateurs, the entrance of a new-comer on the ground makes a vital difference, especially if the market is in need of support from existing wants having been supplied; and if one goes about a little, one hears men whispering in corners and questioning who the stranger is, and for what he is likely to prove good. Should he be a strong man, that is, in purse, you will soon perceive, if you keep your eye on the auction-room, another strong man buying at all costs against all comers just the articles which commend themselves to the first _dramatis persona_. He buys nearly everything; they are for him alone, unless there are two in the field concurrently, and then one may be conveniently played off against the other. A small field it is!

And this interesting commercial strategy is always going on, while the objects of pursuit continually vary. The dealer looks after, not his own desiderata--for he has none--but those of his immediate clients.

In a large business a man is likely to have many; but the cla.s.s which repays study, which turns sovereigns into bank-notes for him, is not a numerous one. Half-a-dozen first-rate customers keep a shop open even in the most fashionable and expensive thoroughfare. The late Joseph Lilly leant during his last years mainly on one. A collector of the stamp of Mr. Hartley was almost sufficient to support such an establishment as Newman's in Holborn or Toovey's in Piccadilly. You might pa.s.s the latter, or both, day after day and week after week, and not see a soul enter or leave the premises; all was done by correspondence and flukes and a few real good buyers in the background. Mr. Quaritch in London or M. Fontaine in Paris will clear more in an afternoon by the change of hands of two or three heavy items than a small dealer, even if he is unusually lucky, will do in a twelvemonth out of thousands of petty and troublesome transactions. It is not particularly unusual for a big firm to sell at one sitting four or five thousand pounds worth of property. There are others which have not sold as much during the entire term of their career, and never will.

The works which enjoy their turn of public favour are generally recognisable in the catalogues by the type in which they are set forth; and any one who has stood by and witnessed all the changes of the last thirty or forty years observes periodical phenomena in the transfer of typographical honours from one school of authors, or one group of subjects, to another. The most recent auctioneers' catalogues reflect the sentiment of the day in lavishing capitals on trifles from the pens of more or less ephemeral modern writers, and registering with corresponding brevity much of the old English literature, which a few years since was in the ascendant. A rare volume of Elizabethan verse or prose halts after an insignificant brochure by Lamb, d.i.c.kens, or Thackeray, which the respective authors would have judged scarcely worth preserving, to which their indifference, in point of fact, const.i.tutes the cause of scarcity and consequent appreciation.

So it was once upon a time, to be sure, with the Caxton, the quarto Shakespeare, the ballad, the penny black-letter garland, and many another article which we now hold so precious. The man who could secure Caxtons and Shakespeares for pence, was he happier? Why, no; for he simply followed the market and n.o.body was envious. He lifted his acquisition off the counter or stall for the best of all reasons--because he fancied it--nay, because he intended to read it when he reached home.

A plea from the absolute collector's point of view--I fear, a weak and false one--is occasionally advanced for books which were formerly in fashion and favour; for example, Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, the Platonic romances, Townley's French _Hudibras_, and a hundred--a thousand--ten thousand more. It is thought to be worth while to have a few of these deposed idols to show to your friends when they visit you, that they may join in a homily on changes of taste. Perhaps it would suffice to compare notes through the medium of some _Censura Literaria_, or Beloe, or Collier. With most people s.p.a.ce is a consideration, with a few, money; and an incidental and pa.s.sing reflection need not be so costly in either way. For that reason such works as I have indicated, and a few others similar to them, are apt to prove serviceable and economical.

The periodical reinforcement of the ranks of the book-collecting world, in the higher lat.i.tudes at least, is obviously imperative, as individuals do not usually commence investments of such a kind till they are well on in life and have put by a fortune, or at all events retired from business. Some purely accidental matter directs attention to a line of bibliography which appears attractive and important; the money is there, and the expert will undertake the rest. It is not the interest of those engaged in the business to be critical; they are merely executive agents. But the demand for the costlier rarities and curiosities is so narrow, that the fresh aspirant is soon the central object of attention to the few who can provide him with what he imagines he wants. As a rule, where a man has no personal knowledge, and finds that he is gradually becoming a milch-cow for the trade, the hobby is not of long duration; it is only where the buyer can control and check the vendor that satisfactory relations are likely to continue, perhaps for years, perhaps for a lifetime. There is ever a tendency, on the part of the bookish commissariat, to strike the iron too hard.

It does happen here and there that collectors are enabled to make their own prices for their acquisitions either by extraordinary reputation for judgment and by virtue of a well-known name, or by the fact of being carried by our common lot beyond earshot of their good fortune, or, once more, by the force of peculiar circ.u.mstances. As an almost inexorable rule, the stocks of dealers are coldly regarded, and even those of William Pickering and Joseph Lilly were allowed to drop, so that, in the latter instance more particularly, some real bargains were obtained. Yet, on the contrary, the books thrown on the market after the retirement of F. S. Ellis and the death of James Toovey went capitally, partly because they were supported by Mr. Quaritch (rather glad perhaps to get rid of his two confreres). Then, more recently, the collection formed by Mr. Warton brought quite unexpected figures, and we feel justified in adding, figures sometimes scarcely warranted by the property. These instances, and this other aspect of the subject, strengthen our contention that the whole affair from beginning to end is a sort of lottery, a type of gambling. If those who enter into the fray do so with their eyes open, and do not object, who should?

But a.s.suredly the most egregious case in modern times of the absolute despotism of name and ownership over all other considerations was that of the portion of William Morris's library submitted to public sale in December 1898. The books themselves were, as a rule, below mediocrity in state, and could not have well possessed for the new acquirers even that special interest and value which Morris recognised in them as aids to his artistic and literary labours. Yet the prices realised were beyond anything on record, and were simply absurd. There seemed to be a violent struggle on the part of three or four compet.i.tors to secure these treasures at any cost, and they did so. Let the very same copies recur, and in the hands of a person of inferior celebrity, and the shrinkage will probably be serious. The direct a.s.sociation was dissolved when the lots were adjudged to the highest bidders, and here the highest bidders were high indeed.

To the speculative investor in literary property what can we have to say? He works with his eyes opened to their widest possibility of expansion, and carries his fortune or success in his hands. No doubt there are occasional flukes for him; but, generally speaking, the greatest have been for collections formed and dispersed without any view to profit, where the state of the market has accidentally favoured the owner, or there was some nimbus round the name.

Before you set about forming a library, you should consider in what sort of atmosphere, of your own or your friends' creation, it is likely to be sold hereafter. You ought almost to be able to calculate how celebrated you will die.

CHAPTER VIII

Early English literature--Absorption of the rarer items by public libraries or by America--Future of collecting--Poetical writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Fruits of a long neglect--Want of discrimination among private buyers--Necessity for a better training or sounder advice--Remarks on our early literature--Small proportion of high-cla.s.s authors--Safe and unsafe investments--Condition of copies--Writers whose works are of mysterious rarity--Nicholas Breton--"Three-halfpenny ware"--Paucity of great names in the post-Restoration period down to our own--Foreign works belonging to the English series: their chief places of origin--English presses--Typographical vicissitudes of London--The Scotish Series--Scotish presses--The Irish Series--Irish presses--The Irish Stock--The List of Claims, 1701--Anglo-American literature and early American editions of English Cla.s.sics--The American Colonial group of books--The _Bay Psalm-Book_, 1640--The volumes of Statutes printed at Boston, Philadelphia, and New York--Sources of information on Anglo-American bibliography--Caution against impatience and enthusiasm.

THE entire range of the earlier English and Scotish romantic, poetical, and even historical literature embraces so many items, which are either unattainable from their rarity or their cost, if they happen once in a lifetime to occur, that it may be said to be ground almost closed against the ordinary private buyer. Articles which are to be seen by the hundred in the priced catalogues of libraries dispersed twenty or thirty years since with fairly moderate figures attached to them, have, owing to severer compet.i.tion from America as well as at home, either for public or private purchasers, trebled or quadrupled in value. With the more modern literature, of which the positive scarcity does not warrant this great inflation, we may reasonably look for a fall; but in the case of volumes which are really rare, it is hard to see how the chances of collectors can be improved in the future. The upshot will be, that they must be satisfied with smaller fish or modify their lines; for of old and elderly books of intrinsic value and interest there is a plentiful choice. With regard to a considerable body of Early English volumes, which formerly appeared in the catalogues of Thorpe, Rodd, the elder Pickering, and others, it is to be said that the fewness of survivors was not appreciated, and half-a-dozen public or closed libraries have absorbed them all.

It exemplifies the remarkable revolution in feeling and taste when we turn over the pages of one of William Pickering's catalogues--that for 1827--and observe a perfect set of the four folio Shakespeares, 1623-85, marked 105, while a large-paper series of Hearne's books, or of some standard edition of the cla.s.sics in morocco, cost more; whereas at present the Hearnes and the cla.s.sics are barely saleable at any price, and the dramatic volumes might be worth twenty times more than they brought seventy years since.

The poetical writers of the Tudor, Elizabethan, and Stuart eras have had, in a commercial sense, two or three reverses of fortune. From the period of publication down to the last quarter of the eighteenth century they were to be bought at prices little beyond waste paper, so soon as the original interest in them had subsided. The editors of Shakespeare--Pope, Hanmer, Theobald, Warburton, Capell, Steevens, Malone, Farmer, and Reed--awakened a sort of new interest in the subject, just in time to save the slender salvage of a century and a half's neglect or indifference from the mill and the kitchen-fire; and their example led to others coming upon the ground, such as West, Major Pearson, the Duke of Roxburghe, Lord Blandford, Lord Spencer, Bindley, and Heber, whose motives were primarily acquisitive. In or about 1833 a strong reaction set in, and prices fell till 1842-45, when the Bright and Chalmers sales, and the more sensible compet.i.tion of the British Museum, again restored confidence and strength to the market. Since that time, our old poets have not, on the whole, suffered any marked decline, and the most recent revival is in their favour.

The Americans, it seems, call for first editions, and they have not to call twice, though they may be required to pay smartly. This new ticket owes its origin to the usual agency. One or two Transatlantic book-lovers gain the information from some source that this is the real article, that if you want fine poetry you must go to these fellows--not exactly Shakespeare and Spenser, for they had heard of them before--but to Gascoigne, Sydney, Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, and the rest of the company; and above all, if you desire to enjoy their beauties and appreciate their genius fully and absolutely, you are referred to the _editio princeps_--not that which the author corrected and preferred, but the one in morocco extra, which your bookseller recommends to you.

It is by no means that we seek to ridicule or discourage the pursuit, but we want and wish to see a more healthy and discriminating spirit among buyers. Let intending collectors devote a reasonable time to a preparatory study of the subject and survey of the field and then they will perhaps accomplish better results at a lower cost. Let them, once more, not be in too violent a hurry. The abundance of transmitted writings in a metrical shape only proves more conclusively the familiar fact that it is as easy to compose verses as it is difficult to compose poetry. The long succession of authors who fall within the category of poets has received an extent of editorial care and ill.u.s.tration in the course of the century, however, which argues the prevalence of a more favourable opinion of their merits. The names which are at present commanding chief notice are those which have always been esteemed: Shakespeare, Fletcher, Beaumont, Jonson, Daniel, Drayton, Wither, Sir John Davis, Herrick, Carew, Lovelace, and Suckling; and among the Scotish bards Drummond takes the lead. The most singular feature about the matter is that, in the presence of all kinds of critical editions, the demand is not for them, but for the originals. The mission of the modern recensor comes to an end when, by a stupendous amount of research and erudition, he has emphasised the characteristics and gifts of a writer. Then the amateur steps forward, and expresses his readiness to give any price for the good old book, undisfigured by notes and emendations!

It is perhaps fruitless to attempt to turn the tide of common sentiment, and gentlemen must be permitted to choose their own money's worth. They may think and say that they want the volume as it left the author's hands, not diluted and overlaid by commentators. Granted, it is a product of the time, even though the author did not see the proofs, and the printer could not always decipher the MS. But then comes the larger and more general question: How much of the better cla.s.s of early verse-writers are worth reading? The present deponent, without being conscious that he is very hyper-critical, states the deliberate result of actual examination and perusal when he affirms that of the minor poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, save perhaps Randolph, the productions of enduring value and interest could be brought within the compa.s.s of a moderate volume.

It would be eminently unwise for any one who treats his library as an investment to yield to the existing tendency to exorbitant prices for the later poets and playwrights, as the rise is due to ephemeral causes, and the demand, for the most part, is not likely to exhaust the supply.

If the truth may be told, the literature of past ages in all countries, and nowhere more so than in England, is, in proportion to its immense extent, excessively barren of high-cla.s.s writers or written matter. Each generation of collectors discovers this fact at last; but it discovers it for itself. We disdain to profit by the experience of our precursors, just as the little girl insisted on learning at her own cost how foolish it was to do a certain thing.

Because there are a few highly interesting catholic publications, your amateur must be absolutely complete in the series. If it seems expedient to possess an example or two of ancient typography, he ends by doing his best to acc.u.mulate every example in the market. There is more than a probability that the service-books of the Romish Church have their archaeological and literary value: _ergo_, he orders every one which he sees advertised, albeit the differences are substantially far from momentous. He understands that some very curious volumes ill.u.s.trative of ritualism and the various holy orders were printed here or abroad, and he proceeds to drain the booksellers' shelves throughout the universe of every bit of sorry stuff answering to this description. There are a dozen or so of Collections of Emblems, English or foreign, which are supposed to throw light on pa.s.sages in Shakespeare and other authors; this is sufficient leverage for the concentration under the unfortunate gentleman's roof of a closely packed cartload.

Seriously and bibliographically speaking, there is a fairly wide difference and disparity among the old editions of the poets and romancists; and there are, and always will be, a distinguished minority, of which the selling prices may be expected to remain firm.

Such men as Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Chapman, Ma.s.singer, and among the lyric group Barnfield, Watson, Constable, Wither (earlier works and _Hallelujah_), Carew, Herrick, Suckling, and Lovelace, are to be viewed as standard and stable.

Then in the Scotish series there is permanence in Lyndsay, Drummond, and Burns. But, on the contrary, the minor, more obscure, or commoner productions must be carefully distinguished and circ.u.mspectly handled by those who do not desire or cannot afford to throw away their money.

The names above cited are themselves very unequal; some, like Breton, Churchyard, Whetstone, Barnfield, Watson, and Constable, are sought, and will ever be sought, by reason of their peculiar rarity; and, save in a sentimental way, no one would probably dream of placing Beaumont, Chapman, Wither, and some of the rest on a par with Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ma.s.singer. There has been, however, a tendency to force on the notice of book-buyers, _faute de mieux_, many writers whose productions are neither rare nor of the first cla.s.s--Heywood, Dekker, Webster, Ford, and Shirley--and to bracket them commercially with authentic _desiderata_ either on the score of merit or of scarcity. Of the three former, the most difficult pieces to procure are the Civic Pageants. Nearly all Ford's and Shirley's works, except the _Echo_ of the latter, 1618, are cla.s.sable among common books even in the first editions.

Again, condition is a postulate which begins to a.s.sert itself in the book-market. Poor and bad copies are eschewed by many or most of those who are willing to pay handsomely for fine specimens; and the worst type of indifferent exemplars is the sophisticated volume, which can be manipulated by experts to such an extent that even a person of considerable experience will now and then be at fault. The American collector grows more fastidious every day, and discovers blemishes which we on this side of the water try to tolerate, if the article is rare or we badly want it. Our Transatlantic friends, however, are more inexorable, and go so far as to return purchases not answering the description in the auctioneer's catalogue to their English commission-agents.

We have instanced above two or three writers whose works command excessive prices mainly by virtue of the paucity of surviving copies, seconded by a faint and indirect literary interest; but we see that the list is open to extension. During the last half-century and upward the publications of Nicholas Breton have fetched sums, when they have occurred, totally incompatible with any intrinsic value; with some few exceptions they belong to the category of "three-halfpenny ware," as Chamberlain the letter-writer styles such things in his correspondence with Sir Dudley Carleton; half-a-dozen or so out of forty and more are undoubtedly curious and ill.u.s.trative; but Mr. Corser and one or two other collectors made a speciality of the author. It is only the other day that Sir John Fenn's copy of Breton's _Works of a Young Wit_, 1577, recorded by Herbert in his _Typographical Antiquities_, and the only perfect one known, occurred at an auction and fetched 81! A fine book it was, too, with the blank leaf at end. Doubtless, the reason for the evanescence of Breton's literary labours is to be sought in their estimation by many, besides the letter-writer above quoted, as barely more than waste paper. Verily, their substantial worth is barely tangible.

Speaking from a connoisseur's rather than from a reader's point of view, when we leave behind us the pre-Restoration writers of Great Britain and Ireland, we do not encounter much difficulty in a commercial sense, if we consider the length of time and the almost innumerable names, excepting Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, Swift's _Gulliver_, Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_, and a few early Byrons and Sh.e.l.leys, unless the buyer schedules among his _desiderata_ the earlier Anglo-American literature. For as we draw nearer to our own day, items which were thought to be superlatively uncommon, including sundry pieces by Tennyson and Browning, have failed to maintain their reputation for scarcity, as any one might have foreseen that they would do. The preposterous prices paid for some copies have brought out others, and the ultimate supply will probably exceed the demand.