Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright, it is a significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively few instances, compared with the whole body of publications. Multitudes of books are published which not only never reach a second edition, but the sale of which does not exhaust more than a small part of the copies printed of the first. In these cases the right of renewal is waived and suffered to lapse, from defect of commercial value in the work protected. In many other cases the right of renewal expires before the author or his assigns bethink them of the privilege secured to them under the law. It results that more than nine-tenths, probably, of all books published are free to any one to print, without reward or royalty to their authors, after a very few years have elapsed. On the other hand, the exclusive right in some publications of considerable commercial value is kept alive far beyond the forty-two years included in the original and the renewal term, by entry of new editions of the work, and securing copyright on the same. While this method may not protect any of the original work from republication by others, it enables the publishers of the copyright edition to advertise such unauthorized reprints as imperfect, and without the author's or editor's latest revision or additions.

The whole number of entries of copyright in the United States since we became a nation considerably exceeds a million and a half. It may be of interest to give the aggregate number of titles of publications entered for copyright in each year since the transfer of the entire records to Washington in 1870.

COPYRIGHTS REGISTERED IN THE UNITED STATES, 1870-1899.

1870 5,600 1874 16,283 1878 15,798 1871 12,688 1875 14,364 1879 18,125 1872 14,164 1876 14,882 1880 20,686 1873 15,352 1877 15,758 1881 21,075 1882 22,918 1888 38,225 1894 62,762 1883 25,273 1889 40,777 1895 67,572 1884 26,893 1890 42,758 1896 72,470 1885 28,410 1891 48,908 1897 74,321 1886 31,241 1892 54,735 1898 76,874 1887 35,083 1893 58,936 1899 86,492

Total, 30 years, 1,079,445

It will readily be seen that this great number of copyrights does not represent books alone. Many thousands of entries are daily and weekly periodicals claiming copyright protection, in which case they are required by law to make entry of every separate issue. These include a multitude of journals, literary, political, scientific, religious, pictorial, technical, commercial, agricultural, sporting, dramatic, etc., among which are a number in foreign languages. These entries also embrace all the leading monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews, with many devoted to specialties—as metaphysics, sociology, law, theology, art, finance, education, and the arts and sciences generally. Another large class of copyright entries (and the largest next to books and periodicals) is musical compositions, numbering recently some 20,000 publications yearly. Much of this property is valuable, and it is nearly all protected by entry of copyright, coming from all parts of the Union. There is also a large and constantly increasing number of works of graphic art, comprising engravings, photographs, photogravures, chromos, lithographs, etchings, prints, and drawings, for which copyright is entered. The steady accumulation of hundreds of thousands of these various pictorial illustrations will enable the government at no distant day, without a dollar of expense, to make an exhibit of the progress of the arts of design in America, which will be highly interesting and instructive. An art gallery of ample dimensions for this purpose is provided in the new National Library building.

It remains to consider briefly the principles and practice of what is known as international copyright.

Perhaps there is no argument for copyright at all in the productions of the intellect which is not good for its extension to all countries. The basis of copyright is that all useful labor is worthy of a recompense; but since all human thought when put into material or merchantable form becomes, in a certain sense, public property, the laws of all countries recognize and protect the original owners, or their assigns to whom they may convey the right, in an exclusive privilege for limited terms only. Literary property therefore is not a natural right, but a conventional one. The author's right to his manuscript is, indeed, absolute, and the law will protect him in it as fully as it will guard any other property. But when once put in type and multiplied through the printing-press, his claim to an exclusive right has to be guarded by a special statute, otherwise it is held to be abandoned (like the articles in a newspaper) to the public. This special protection is furnished in nearly all civilized countries by copyright law.

What we call "copyright" is an exclusive right to multiply copies of any publication for sale. Domestic copyright, which is all we formerly had in this country, is limited to the United States. International copyright, which has now been enacted, extends the right of American authors to foreign countries, and recognizes a parallel right of foreign authors in our own. There is nothing in the constitutional provision which restrains Congress from granting copyright to other than American citizens. Patent right, coming under the same clause of the Constitution, has been extended to foreigners. Out of over 20,000 patents annually issued, about 2,500 (or 12 per cent.) are issued to foreigners, while American patents are similarly protected abroad. If we have international patent right, why not international copyright? The grant of power is the same; both patent right and copyright are for a limited time; both rights during this time are exclusive; and both rest upon the broad ground of the promotion of science and the useful arts. If copyright is justifiable at all, if authors are to be secured a reward for their labors, they claim that all who use them should contribute equally to this result. The principle of copyright once admitted, it cannot logically be confined to State lines or national boundaries. There appears to be no middle ground between the doctrine of common property in all productions of the intellect—which leads us to communism by the shortest road—and the admission that copyright is due, while its limited term lasts, from all who use the works of an author, wherever found.

Accordingly, international copyright has become the policy of nearly all civilized nations. The term of copyright is longer in most countries than in the United States, ranging from the life of the author and seven years beyond, in England, to a life term and fifty years additional in France and Russia. Copyright is thus made a life tenure and something more in all countries except our own, where its utmost limit is forty-two years. This may perhaps be held to represent a fair average lifetime, reckoned from the age of intellectual maturity. There have not been wanting advocates for a perpetual copyright, to run to the author and his heirs and assigns forever. This was urged before the British Copyright Commission in 1878 by leading British publishers, but the term of copyright is hitherto, in all nations, limited by law.

Only brief allusion can be made to the most recent (and in some respects most important) advance step which has been taken in copyright legislation in the United States. This act of Congress is aimed at securing reciprocal protection to American and foreign authors in the respective countries which may comply with its provisions. There is here no room to sketch the hitherto vain attempt to secure to authors, here and abroad, an international protection to their writings. Suffice it to say that a union of interests was at last effected, whereby authors, publishers and manufacturers are supposed to have secured some measure of protection to their varied interests. The measure is largely experimental, and the satisfaction felt over its passage into law is tempered by doubt in various quarters as to the justice, or liberality, or actual benefit to authors of its provisions. What is to be said of a statute which was denounced by some Senators as a long step backward toward barbarism, and hailed by others as a great landmark in the progress of civilization?

The main features added to the existing law of copyright by this act, which took effect July 1, 1891, are these:

1. All limitation of the privilege of copyright to citizens and residents of the United States is repealed.

2. Foreigners applying for copyright are to pay fees of $1 for record, or $1.50 for certificate of copyright.

3. Importation of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs entered here for copyright is prohibited, except two copies of any book for use and not for sale.

4. The two copies of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs deposited with the Librarian of Congress must be printed from type set, or plates, etc., made in the United States. It follows that all foreign works protected by American copyright must be wholly manufactured in this country.

5. The copyright privilege is restricted to citizens or subjects of nations permitting the benefit of copyright to Americans on substantially the same terms as their own citizens, or of nations who have international agreements providing for reciprocity in the grant of copyright, to which the United States may at its pleasure become a party.

6. The benefit of copyright in the United States is not to take effect as to any foreigner until the actual existence of either of the conditions just recited, in the case of the nation to which he belongs, shall have been made known by a proclamation of the President of the United States.

One very material benefit has been secured through international copyright. Under it, authors are assured the control of their own text, both as to correctness and completeness. Formerly, republication was conducted on a "scramble" system, by which books were hastened through the press, to secure the earliest market, with little or no regard to a correct re-production. Moreover, it was in the power of the American publisher of an English book, or of a British publisher of an American one, to alter or omit passages in any work reprinted, at his pleasure. This license was formerly exercised, and imperfect, garbled, or truncated editions of an author's writings were issued without his consent, an outrage against which international copyright furnishes the only preventive.

Another benefit of copyright between nations has been to check the relentless flood of cheap, unpaid-for fiction, which formerly poured from the press, submerging the better literature. The Seaside and other libraries, with their miserable type, flimsy paper, and ugly form, were an injury alike to the eyesight, to the taste, and in many cases, to the morals of the community. More than ninety per cent. of these wretched "Libraries" were foreign novels. An avalanche of English and translated French novels of the "bigamy school" of fiction swept over the land, until the cut-throat competition of publishers, after exhausting the stock of unwholesome foreign literature, led to the failure of many houses, and piled high the counters of book and other stores with bankrupt stock. Having at last got rid of this unclean brood, (it is hoped forever) we now have better books, produced on good paper and type, and worth preserving, at prices not much above those of the trash formerly offered us.

At the same time, standard works of science and literature are being published in England at prices which tend steadily toward increased popular circulation. Even conservative publishers are reversing the rule of small editions at high prices, for larger editions at low prices. The old three-volume novel is nearly supplanted by the one volume, well-printed and bound book at five or six shillings. Many more reductions would follow in the higher class of books, were not the measure of reciprocal copyright thus far secured handicapped by the necessity of re-printing on this side at double cost, if a large American circulation is in view.

The writers of America, with the steady and rapid progress of the art of making books, have come more and more to appreciate the value of their preservation, in complete and unbroken series, in the library of the government, the appropriate conservator of the nation's literature. Inclusive and not exclusive, as this library is wisely made by law, so far as copyright works are concerned, it preserves with impartial care the illustrious and the obscure. In its archives all sciences and all schools of opinion stand on equal ground. In the beautiful and ample repository, now erected and dedicated to literature and art through the liberal action of Congress, the intellectual wealth of the past and the present age will be handed down to the ages that are to follow.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] G. H. Putnam, "Books and their makers in the Middle Ages," N. Y. 1897, vol. 2, p. 447.



CHAPTER 24.

POETRY OF THE LIBRARY.

THE LIBRARIAN'S DREAM.

1. He sat at night by his lonely bed, With an open book before him; And slowly nodded his weary head, As slumber came stealing o'er him.

2. And he saw in his dream a mighty host Of the writers gone before, And the shadowy form of many a ghost Glided in at the open door.

3. Great Homer came first in a snow-white shroud, And Virgil sang sweet by his side; While Cicero thundered in accents loud, And Caesar most gravely replied.

4. Anacreon, too, from his rhythmical lips The honey of Hybla distilled, And Herodotus suffered a partial eclipse, While Horace with music was filled.

5. The procession of ancients was brilliant and long, Aristotle and Plato were there, Thucydides, too, and Tacitus strong, And Plutarch, and Sappho the fair.

6. Aristophanes elbowed gay Ovid's white ghost, And Euripides Xenophon led, While Propertius laughed loud at Juvenal's jokes, And Sophocles rose from the dead.

7. Then followed a throng to memory dear, Of writers more modern in age, Cervantes and Shakespeare, who died the same year, And Chaucer, and Bacon the sage.

8. Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng, And Dante moved by with his lyre, While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song, And Boccaccio paused to admire.

9. Sweet Spenser and Calderon moved arm in arm, While Milton and Sidney were there, Pope, Dryden, and Moliere added their charm, And Bunyan, and Marlowe so rare.

10. Then Gibbon stalked by in classical guise, And Hume, and Macaulay, and Froude, While Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall looked wise, And Humboldt and Comte near them stood.

11. Dean Swift looked sardonic on Addison's face, And Johnson tipped Boswell a wink, Walter Scott and Jane Austen hobnobbed o'er a glass, And Goethe himself deigned to drink.

12. Robert Burns followed next with Thomas Carlyle, Jean Paul paired with Coleridge, too, While De Foe elbowed Goldsmith, the master of style, And Fielding and Schiller made two.

13. Rousseau with his eloquent, marvellous style, And Voltaire, with his keen, witty pen, Victor Hugo so grand, though repellent the while, And Dumas and Balzac again.

14. Dear Thackeray came in his happiest mood, And stayed until midnight was done, Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, and Kingsley and Hood, And Dickens, the master of fun.

15. George Eliot, too, with her matter-full page, And Byron, and Browning, and Keats, While Shelley and Tennyson joined youth and age, And Wordsworth the circle completes.

16. Then followed a group of America's best, With Irving, and Bryant, and Holmes, While Bancroft and Motley unite with the rest, And Thoreau with Whittier comes.

17. With his Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe, And Longfellow sweet and serene, While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too, And Hawthorne and Lowell were seen.

18. While thus the assembly of witty and wise Rejoiced the librarian's sight, Ere the wonderful vision had fled from his eyes, From above shone a heavenly light:

19. And solemn and sweet came a voice from the skies, "All battles and conflicts are done, The temple of Knowledge shall open all eyes, And law, faith, and reason are one!"

When the radiant dawn of the morning broke, From his glorious dream the librarian woke.

* * * * *

THE LIBRARY.

That place that does contain my books, My books, the best companions, is to me, A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers; And sometimes, for variety I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

* * * * *

The bard of every age and clime, Of genius fruitful and of soul sublime, Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours No spurious metal, fused from common ores, But gold to matchless purity refined, And stamped with all the Godhead in his mind. JUVENAL.

* * * * *

Books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. WORDSWORTH.

* * * * *

QUAINT LINES ON A BOOK-WORM.

The Bokeworme sitteth in his celle, He studyethe all alone, And burnethe oute the oile, 'Till ye midnight hour is gone Then gethe he downe upon his bedde, Ne mo watch will he a-keepe, He layethe his heade on ye pillowe, And eke he tryes to sleepe. Then swyfte there cometh a vision grimme, And greetythe him sleepynge fair, And straighte he dreameth of grislie dreames, And dreades fellowne and rayre. Wherefore, if cravest life to eld Ne rede longe uppe at night, But go to bed at Curfew bell And ryse wythe mornynge's lyte.

* * * * *

BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.

In torrid heats of late July, In March, beneath the bitter bise, He book-hunts while the loungers fly,— He book-hunts, though December freeze; In breeches baggy at the knees, And heedless of the public jeers, For these, for these, he hoards his fees,— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

No dismal stall escapes his eye, He turns o'er tomes of low degrees, There soiled romanticists may lie, Or Restoration comedies; Each tract that flutters in the breeze For him is charged with hopes and fears, In mouldy novels fancy sees Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

With restless eyes that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease,— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!

Prince, all the things that tease and please,— Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, jeers and tears, What are they but such toys as these— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs? ANDREW LANG.

* * * * *

'Tis in books the chief Of all perfections to be plain and brief. SAMUEL BUTLER.

Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief master-piece is writing well. BUCKINGHAM.

Books should to one of these four ends conduce: For wisdom, piety, delight, or use. SIR JOHN DENHAM.

* * * * *

MY BOOKS.

Oh, happy he who, weary of the sound Of throbbing life, can shut his study door, Like Heinsius, on it all, to find a store Of peace that otherwise is never found! Such happiness is mine, when all around My dear dumb friends in groups of three or four Command my soul to linger on the shore Of those fair realms where they reign monarchs crowned. To-day the strivings of the world are naught, For I am in a land that glows with God, And I am in a path by angels trod. Dost ask what book creates such heavenly thought? Then know that I with Dante soar afar, Till earth shrinks slowly to a tiny star. J. WILLIAMS.

* * * * *

THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.

Speak low! tread softly through these halls; Here genius lives enshrined; Here reign in silent majesty The monarchs of the mind.

A mighty spirit host they come From every age and clime; Above the buried wrecks of years They breast the tide of time.

Here shall the poets chant for thee Their sweetest, loftiest lays, And prophets wait to guide thy steps In Wisdom's pleasant ways.

Come, with these God-anointed kings Be thou companion here; And in the mighty realm of mind Thou shalt go forth a peer! ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA.

* * * * *

VERSES IN A LIBRARY.

Give me that book whose power is such That I forget the north wind's touch.

Give me that book that brings to me Forgetfulness of what I be.

Give me that book that takes my life In seeming far from all its strife.

Give me that book wherein each page Destroys my sense of creeping age. JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.

* * * * *

A BOOK BY THE BROOK.

Give me a nook and a book, And let the proud world spin round; Let it scramble by hook or by crook For wealth or a name with a sound. You are welcome to amble your ways, Aspirers to place or to glory; May big bells jangle your praise, And golden pens blazon your story; For me, let me dwell in my nook, Here by the curve of this brook, That croons to the tune of my book: Whose melody wafts me forever On the waves of an unseen river. WILLIAM FREELAND.

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books. H. W. LONGFELLOW.

Oh for a booke and a shady nooke Eyther in door or out, With the greene leaves whispering overhead, Or the streete cryes all about: Where I maie reade all at my ease Both of the newe and olde, For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke Is better to me than golde!

* * * * *

TO DANIEL ELZEVIR.

(From the Latin of Menage.)

What do I see! Oh! gods divine And Goddesses—this Book of mine— This child of many hopes and fears, Is published by the Elzevirs! Oh Perfect publishers complete! Oh dainty volume, new and neat! The Paper doth outshine the snow, The Print is blacker than the crow, The Title-page, with crimson bright, The vellum cover smooth and white, All sorts of readers to invite; Ay, and will keep them reading still, Against their will, or with their will! Thus what of grace the Rhymes may lack The Publisher has given them back, As Milliners adorn the fair Whose charms are something skimp and spare.

Oh dulce decus, Elzevirs! The pride of dead and dawning years, How can a poet best repay The debt he owes your House to-day? May this round world, while aught endures, Applaud, and buy, these books of yours. May purchasers incessant pop, My Elzevirs, within your shop, And learned bards salute, with cheers, The volumes of the Elzevirs, Till your renown fills earth and sky, Till men forget the Stephani, And all that Aldus wrought, and all Turnebus sold in shop or stall, While still may Fate's (and Binders') shears Respect, and spare, the Elzevirs!

* * * * *

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares! The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays. WORDSWORTH.

* * * * *

COMPANIONS.

But books, old friends that are always new, Of all good things that we know are best; They never forsake us, as others do, And never disturb our inward rest. Here is truth in a world of lies, And all that in man is great and wise! Better than men and women, friend, That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, Are the books their cunning hands have penned, For they depart, but the books remain. RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

* * * * *

THE PARADOX OF BOOKS.

I'm strange contradictions; I'm new and I'm old, I'm often in tatters, and oft decked with gold. Though I never could read, yet lettered I'm found; Though blind, I enlighten; though loose, I am bound. I'm always in black, and I'm always in white; I am grave and I'm gay, I am heavy and light. In form too I differ,—I'm thick and I'm thin; I've no flesh and no bone, yet I'm covered with skin; I've more points than the compass, more stops than the flute; I sing without voice, without speaking confute; I'm English, I'm German, I'm French, and I'm Dutch; Some love me too fondly, some slight me too much; I often die soon, though I sometimes live ages, And no monarch alive has so many pages. HANNAH MORE.

* * * * *

I love my books as drinkers love their wine; The more I drink, the more they seem divine; With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er, And each fresh draught is sweeter than before: Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be,— Solace of solitude, bonds of society.

I love my books! they are companions dear, Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere; Here talk I with the wise in ages gone, And with the nobly gifted in our own: If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind, Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find. FRANCIS BENNOCH.

* * * * *

MY LIBRARY.

All round the room my silent servants wait,— My friends in every season, bright and dim Angels and seraphim Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low, And spirits of the skies all come and go Early and late; From the old world's divine and distant date, From the sublimer few, Down to the poet who but yester-eve Sang sweet and made us grieve, All come, assembling here in order due. And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate, With Erato and all her vernal sighs, Great Clio with her victories elate, Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes. Oh friends, whom chance or change can never harm, Whom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die, Within whose folding soft eternal charm I love to lie, And meditate upon your verse that flows, And fertilizes wheresoe'er it goes. BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.

* * * * *

RATIONAL MADNESS.

A Song, for the Lover of Curious and Rare Books.

Come, boys, fill your glasses, and fill to the brim, Here's the essence of humor, the soul, too, of whim! Attend and receive (and sure 'tis no vapour) A "hap' worth of wit on a pennyworth of paper."

Those joys which the Bibliomania affords Are felt and acknowledged by Dukes and by Lords! And the finest estate would be offer'd in vain For an exemplar bound by the famed Roger Payne!

To a proverb goes madness with love hand in hand, But our senses we yield to a double command; The dear frenzy in both is first rous'd by fair looks,— Here's our sweethearts, my boys! not forgetting our books!

Thus our time may we pass with rare books and rare friends, Growing wiser and better, till life itself ends: And may those who delight not in black-letter lore, By some obsolete act be sent from our shore!

* * * * *

BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.

While others are asking for beauty or fame, Or praying to know that for which they should pray, Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame, Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey, The sage has found out a more excellent way— To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers, And his humble petition puts up day by day, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Inventors may bow to the God that is lame, And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray; Philosophers kneel to the God without name, Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they; The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay, The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours; But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame) O grant me a house by the beach of a bay, Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers! And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

ENVOY.

Gods, grant or withhold it; your "yea" and your "nay" Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours: But life is worth living, and here we would stay For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. ANDREW LANG.

* * * * *

THE LIBRARY.

They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise: Their aid they yield to all: they never shun The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone: Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd; Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects, what they show to kings.

Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind To stamp a lasting image of the mind!

With awe, around these silent walks I tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead:— "The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply; "These are the tombs of such as cannot die! Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime, And laugh at all the little strife of time."

Lo, all in silence, all in order stand, And mighty folios first, a lordly band; Then quartos their well-order'd ranks maintain, And light octavos fill a spacious plain: See yonder, ranged in more frequent rows, A humbler band of duodecimos; While undistinguished trifles swell the scene, The last new play and fritter'd magazine.

Here all the rage of controversy ends, And rival zealots rest like bosom friends: An Athanasian here, in deep repose, Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes; Socinians here with Calvinists abide, And thin partitions angry chiefs divide; Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet, And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet. GEORGE CRABBE.

* * * * *

ETERNITY OF POETRY.

For deeds doe die, however noblie donne, And thoughts do as themselves decay; But wise words, taught in numbers for to runne Recorded by the Muses, live for ay; Ne may with storming showers be washt away, Ne bitter breathing windes with harmful blast, Nor age, nor envie, shall them ever wast. SPENSER.

* * * * *

THE OLD BOOKS.

The old books, the old books, the books of long ago! Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow? We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den; We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men. The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze! We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees, They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into good; A noble spirit from them breathed, the rest was understood.

The old books, the old books, the mother loves them best; They leave no bitter taste behind to haunt the youthful breast: They bid us hope, they bid us fill our hearts with visions fair; They do not paralyze the will with problems of despair. And as they lift from sloth and sense to follow loftier planes, And stir the blood of indolence to bubble in the veins: Inheritors of mighty things, who own a lineage high, We feel within us budding wings that long to reach the sky: To rise above the commonplace, and through the cloud to soar, And join the loftier company of grander souls of yore. THE SPECTATOR.



CHAPTER 25.

HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY.[3]

SOME THOUGHTS ON CLASSIFICATION.

By Librarian F. M. Crunden.

Classification is vexation, Shelf-numbering is as bad; The rule of D Doth puzzle me; Mnemonics drives me mad.

Air—The Lord Chancellor's Song.

When first I became a librarian, Says I to myself, says I, I'll learn all their systems as fast as I can, Says I to myself, says I; The Cutter, the Dewey, the Schwartz, and the Poole, The alphabet, numeral, mnemonic rule, The old, and the new, and the eclectic school, Says I to myself, says I.

Class-numbers, shelf-numbers, book-numbers, too, Says I to myself, says I, I'll study them all, and I'll learn them clear thro', Says I to myself, says I; I'll find what is good, and what's better and best, And I'll put two or three to a practical test; And then—if I've time—I'll take a short rest, Says I to myself, says I.

But art it is long and time it doth fly, Says I to myself, says I, And three or four years have already passed by, Says I to myself, says I; And yet on those systems I'm not at all clear, While new combinations forever appear, To master them all is a life-work, I fear, Says I to myself, says I.

* * * * *

Classification in a Library in Western New York: Gail Hamilton's "Woolgathering," under Agriculture.

* * * * *

Book asked for. "An attack philosopher in Paris."

A changed title. A young woman went into a library the other day and asked for the novel entitled "She combeth not her head," but she finally concluded to take "He cometh not, she said."

* * * * *

Labor-saving devices. The economical catalogue-maker who thus set down two titles—

"Mill on the Floss, do. Political economy."

has a sister who keeps a universal scrap-book into which everything goes, but which is carefully indexed. She, too, has a mind for saving, as witness:

"Patti, Adelina. do. Oyster."

* * * * *

From a New York auction catalogue:

"267. Junius Stat Nominis Umbrii, with numerous splendid portraits."

* * * * *

At the New York Free Circulating Library, a youth of twenty said Shakespeare made him tired. "Why couldn't he write English instead of indulging in that thee and thou business?" Miss Braddon he pronounced "a daisy". A pretty little blue-eyed fellow "liked American history best of all," but found the first volume of Justin Winsor's history too much for him. "The French and German and Hebrew in it are all right, but there's Spanish and Italian and Latin, and I don't know those."

* * * * *

A gentleman in Paris sent to the bookbinder two volumes of the French edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The title in French is "L'Oncle Tom," and the two volumes were returned to him marked on their backs:

L'Oncle, L'Oncle, Tome I. Tome II.

* * * * *

HOW A BIBLIOMANIAC BINDS HIS BOOKS.

I'd like my favorite books to bind So that their outward dress To every bibliomaniac's mind Their contents should express.

Napoleon's life should glare in red, John Calvin's life in blue; Thus they would typify bloodshed And sour religion's hue.

The Popes in scarlet well may go; In jealous green, Othello; In gray, Old Age of Cicero, And London Cries in yellow.

My Walton should his gentle art In salmon best express, And Penn and Fox the friendly heart In quiet drab confess.

Crimea's warlike facts and dates Of fragrant Russia smell; The subjugated Barbary States In crushed Morocco dwell.

But oh! that one I hold so dear Should be arrayed so cheap Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear My Lamb must be half-sheep! IRVING BROWNE.

* * * * *

In a Wisconsin library, a young lady asked for the "Life of National Harthorne" and the "Autograph on the breakfast table."

* * * * *

"Have you a poem on the Victor of Manengo, by Anon?"

* * * * *

Library inquiry—"I want the catalogue of temporary literature."

Query—What did she want?

A friend proposes to put Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundaries of Another World" in Travels. Shall we let him?

* * * * *

A poet, in Boston, filled out an application for a volume of Pope's works, an edition reserved from circulation, in the following tuneful manner:

"You ask me, dear sir, to a reason define Why you should for a fortnight this volume resign To my care.—I am also a son of the nine."

* * * * *

A worthy Deutscher, confident in his mastery of the English tongue, sent the following quaint document across the sea:

"I send you with the Post six numbers, of our Allgemeine Militaer-Zeitung, which is published in the next year to the fifty times. Excuse my bath english I learned in the school and I forgot so much. If you have interest to german Antiquariatskataloge I will send to you some. I remain however yours truly servant."

* * * * *

A gentlemanly stranger once asked the delivery clerk for "a genealogy." "What one?" she asked. "Oh! any," he said. "Well—Savage's?" "No; white men."

* * * * *

Said Melvil Dewey: "To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. Such shall be greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve this greatness will be women."

* * * * *

A LIBRARY HYMN.

By an Assistant Librarian.

I have endeavored to clothe the dull prose of the usual Library Rules with the mantle of poetry, that they may be more attractive, and more easily remembered by the great public whom we serve.

Gently, reader, gently moving, Wipe your feet beside the door; Hush your voice to whispers soothing, Take your hat off, I implore! Mark your number, plainly, rightly, From the catalogue you see; With the card projecting slightly, Then your book bring unto me. Quickly working, With no shirking, Soon another there will be.

If above two weeks you've left me, Just two cents a day I'll take, And, unless my mind's bereft me, Payment you must straightway make. Treat your books as if to-morrow, Gabriel's trump would surely sound, And all scribbling, to your sorrow, 'Gainst your credit would be found. Therefore tear not, Spot and wear not All these books so neatly bound.

These few simple rules abiding, We shall always on you smile: There will be no room for chiding, No one's temper will you rile. And when Heaven's golden portals For you on their hinges turn, With the books for all immortals, There will be no rules to learn. Therefore heed them, Often read them, Lest your future weal you spurn.

* * * * *

TITLES OF BOOKS ASKED FOR BY WRITTEN SLIPS IN A POPULAR LIBRARY.

Aristopholus translated by Buckley. Alfreri Tragedus. Bertall Lavie Hors De Ches Soi. Cooke M. C. M. A. L. L. D. their nature and uses. Edited by Rev. J. M. Berkeley M. A. F. R. S. (Fungi.) Caralus Note Book (A Cavalier's). Gobden Club-Essays. Specie the origin of Darwin. An Epistropal Prayer Book.

* * * * *

BLUNDERS IN CATALOGUING.

Gasparin. The uprising of a great many people. Hughes, Tom. The scouring of the White House. Mayhew. The pheasant boy. Wind in the lower animals (Mind.)

* * * * *

RECENT CALLS FOR BOOKS AT A WESTERN LIBRARY.

Account of Monte Cristo. Acrost the Kontinent by Boles. Bula. Count of Corpus Cristy. Dant's Infernal comedy. Darwin's Descent on man. Feminine Cooper's works. Infeleese. Less Miserable. Some of Macbeth's writings. Something in the way of friction. Squeal to a book.

* * * * *

In Vol. 3 of Laporte's "Bibliographie contemporaine," Dibdin's famous book is entered thus: "Bibliomania, or boock, madnss: a bibliographical romance...ilustrated with cats."

* * * * *

A well-known librarian writes:

"The Catalogue of the Indiana State Library for the year 1859 has long been my wonder and admiration. "Bank's History of the Popes" appears under the letter B. Strong in the historical department, it offers a choice between the "Life of John Tyler, by Harper & Brothers," "Memoirs of Moses Henderson, by Jewish Philosophers," "Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereach, by the Marquis of Londonderry," and "Memoirs of Benvenuto, by Gellini." In fiction, you may find "Tales of My Landlord by Cleishbotham," and "The Pilot, by the Author of the Pioneers;" while, if your passion for plural authorship is otherwise unappeasable—if Beaumont and Fletcher or Erckman-Chatrian seem to you too feeble a combination of talents—you may well be captivated by the title "Small Arms, by the United States Army."

"The State of Indiana has undoubtedly learned a good many things since 1859; but whosoever its present librarian may be, it is hardly probable that its highest flight in bibliography has surpassed the catalogue from which the above are quoted."

* * * * *

Books demanded at a certain public library:

"The Stuck-up Minister"—(Stickit Minister.) "From Jessie to Ernest" (Jest to Earnest).

* * * * *

A country order for books called for "The Thrown of David," "Echo of Hummo" (Ecce Homo) and "Echo of Deas" (Ecce Deus).

* * * * *

The Nation mentions as an instance of "the havoc which types can make with the titles of books, that a single catalogue gives us 'Clara Reeve's Old English Barn,' 'Swinburne's Century of Scoundrels,' and 'Una and her Papuse.' But this is outdone by the bookseller who offered for sale "Balvatzky, Mrs. Izis unveiled." Another goddess is offended in "Transits of Venice, by R. A. Proctor."

* * * * *

In a certain city, an examination of applicants for employment in the public library was held. The following is an exact copy of the answer to a question, asking for the title of a work written by each of the authors named: "John Ruskin, 'The Bread Winners;' William H. Prescott, 'The Frozen Pirate;' Charles Darwin, 'The Missing Link;' Thomas Carlyle, 'Caesar's Column.'" The same man is responsible for saying that "B. C." stands for the Creation, and "A. D." for the Deluge.

Who wants this bright young man?

* * * * *

A STORY ABOUT STORIES.

"When A Man's Single," all "Vanity Fair" Courts his favor and smiles, And feminine "Moths" "In Silk Attire" Try on him "A Woman's Wiles."

"The World, the Flesh and the Devil" Were "Wormwood" and gall to me, Weary and sick of "The Passing Show," No "Woman's Face" was "Fair to See."

I fled away to "The Mill on the Floss" "Two Years Ago," "In an Evil Hour," For "The Miller's Daughter" there I met, Who "Cometh Up as a Flower."

She was a simple "Rose in June," And I was "An Average Man;" "We Two" were "Far From the Madding Crowd" When our "Love and Life" began.

It was but "A Modern Instance" Of true "Love's Random Shot," And I, "The Heir of Redclyffe" Was "Kidnapped": and "Why Not"?

We cannot escape the hand of "Fate," And few are "Fated to be Free," But beware of "A Social Departure"— You'll live "Under the Ban," like me.

I tried to force the "Gates Ajar" For my "Queen of Curds and Cream," But "The Pillars of Society" Shook with horror at my "Dream."

I am no more "A Happy Man," Though blessed with "Heavenly Twins," Because "The Wicked World" maintains "A Low Marriage" the worst of sins.

"Pride and Prejudice" rule the world, "A Marriage for Love" is "A Capital Crime," Beware of "A Country Neighborhood" And shun "Mad Love" in time.

* * * * *

Says the Nation:

A Philadelphia catalogue, whose compiler must have been more interested in current events than in his task, offers for sale "Intrigues of the Queen of Spain with McKinley, the Prince of Peace, Boston, 1809." How Godoy should become McKinley, or McKinley should become the Prince of Peace, is a problem for psychologists.

* * * * *

CONFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.

The following are some specimens of answers to Examinations of candidates for Library employment, given within the past five years:

"A sonnet is a poem which is adapted to music, as Petrarch's sonnets"; "a sonnet is a short poem sometimes and sometimes a long one and generally a reflection, or thoughts upon some inanimate thing, as Young's 'Night thoughts.'" "An epic is a critical writing, as 'Criticism on man'"; "an epic is a literary form written in verse, and which teaches us some lesson not necessarily of a moral nature"; "an epic is a dramatic poem."

Epigrammatic writing is very clearly defined as "critical in a grammatical way." "Allegory is writing highly colored, as Pope's works"; "allegory is writing of something that never happened, but it is purely imaginary, often a wandering from the main point." A common mistake regarding the meaning of the word bibliography results in such answers as "bibliography—a study of the Bible;" or "gives the lives of the people in the Bible." An encyclopaedia was aptly defined as "a storehouse of knowledge for the enlightenment of the public," while another answer reads "Book of Books, giving the life of famous persons, life and habits of animals and plants, and some medical knowledge." A collection of works of any author is termed "an anthropology." "Anthology is the study of insects." Folklore is defined as "giving to animals and things human sense"; an elegy means "a eulogy," oratory, "the deliverance of words." Belles-lettres is to one applicant "beautiful ideas," to another "the title of a book," to another "short stories"; again "are the letters of French writers," and still another writes "French for prominent literature and light literature." A concordance "is the explication or definition of something told in a simpler form," is the extremely lucid answer to one question, which was answered by another candidate as "a table of reference at back of book."

The titles of books are too seldom associated with their authors' names, resulting in such answers as "Homer is the author of the Aeneid"; "Lalla Rookh" was written by James Blackmore; "Children of the Abbey," by Walter Besant (while another attributed it to Jane Porter); "Bow of orange Ribbon," by George Meredith; "Hon. Peter Stirling," by Fielding; "Quo Vadis," by Browning; "Pamela," by Frank Stockton (according to another by Marie Edgworth); "Love's Labour's Lost," by Bryant (another gives Thomas Reade as the author, while still another guesses Schiller); "Descent of Man," by Alexander Pope (another gives Dryden); "The Essay on Man," by Francis Bacon.

One candidate believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon poem; another that "Victor Hugo's best known work is William Tell"; another that "Aesop's Fables is a famous allegory." Charlotte Bronte is described as an "American—nineteenth century—children's book." Cicero was "known for Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he takes you into hell and describes Satan and his angels. He wrote his play for the stage." Another's idea of the Divine Comedy is "a play which could be acted by the priests on the steps of a church for the benefit of the poorer class."

Civil service in the mind of one young woman was "the service done by the government in a country, domesticly."

A Christian socialist is "an advocate of Christian science." "A limited monarchy is a kingdom whose ruler is under the ruler of another country." Legal tender is "the legal rate of interest"; another considers it "Paper money." In economics, some of the answers were "profit-sharing, a term used in socialism, the rich to divide among the poor." "Monopolies is the money gained by selling church properties"; while "a trust is usually a place where a person puts some money where it will be safe to keep it."

About noted personages and historic events and places the answers are equally startling. "Moliere was a French essayist and critic" (also "a French writer of the nineteenth century,") Cecil Rhodes, "the founder of Bryn Mawr College"; "Seth Low—England, eighteenth century;" Attila "a woman mentioned in the Bible for her great cruelty to her child;" Warren Hastings "was a German soldier" (also "was a discoverer; died about 1870"); "Nero was a Roman emperor B. C. 450." Perhaps the most unique guess in this line was "Richard Wagner invented the Wagner cars;" Abbotsford is "the title of a book by Sir Walter Scott;" "Vassar College is a dream, high-up and unattainable;" "Tammany Hall is a political meeting place in London;" "the Parthenon, an art gallery in Athens."

Pedagogy seemed one of the most perplexing of words. It was defined by one as "the science of religion," by another as "learned pomposity;" but the most remarkable of all was "pedagogy is the study of feet."

* * * * *

SONG OF SOME LIBRARY SCHOOL SCHOLARS.

Three little maids from school are we, Filled to the brim with economy— Not of the house but library, Learnt in the Library School.

1st Maid—I range my books from number one. 2nd Maid—Alphabetically I've begun. 3rd Maid—In regular classes mine do run. All—Three maids from the Library School.

All—Three little maidens all unwary, Each in charge of a library, Each with a system quite contrary To every other school.

Our catalogues, we quite agree, From faults and errors must be free, If only we our way can see To find the proper rule.

* * * * *

Boy's remark on returning a certain juvenile book to the library: "I don't want any more of them books. The girls is all too holy."

* * * * *

"Half the books in this library are not worth reading," said a sour-visaged, hypercritical, novel-satiated woman.—"Read the other half, then," advised a bystander.

* * * * *

THE WOES OF A LIBRARIAN.

Let us give a brief rehearsal Of the learning universal, Which men expect to find In Librarians to their mind.

He must undergo probation, Before he gets a situation; Must begin at the creation, When the world was in formation, And come down to its cremation, In the final consummation Of the old world's final spasm: He must study protoplasm, And bridge over every chasm In the origin of species, Ere the monkey wore the breeches, Or the Simian tribe began To ascend from ape to man.

He must master the cosmology, And know all about psychology, And the wonders of biology, And be deep in ornithology, And develop ideology, With the aid of craniology. He must learn to teach zooelogy, And be skilled in etymology, And the science of philology, And calculate chronology, While he digs into geology, And treats of entomology, And hunts up old mythology, And dips into theology, And grows wise in sociology, And expert in anthropology.

He must also know geography, And the best works on photography, And the science of stenography, And be well up on cosmography, And the secrets of cryptography. Must interpret blind chirography, Know by heart all mens' biography, And the black art of typography, And every book in bibliography.

These things are all essential And highly consequential.

If he's haunted by ambition For a library position, And esteems it a high mission, To aspire to erudition; He will find some politician Of an envious disposition, Getting up a coalition To secure his non-admission, And send him to perdition, Before he's reached fruition.

If he gets the situation, And is full of proud elation And of fond anticipation, And has in contemplation To enlighten half the nation, He may write a dissertation For the public information On the laws of observation, And the art of conversation.

He must know each famed oration, And poetical quotation, And master derivation, And the science of translation, And complex pagination, And perfect punctuation, And binomial equation, And accurate computation, And boundless permutation, And infinite gradation, And the craft of divination, And Scripture revelation, And the secret of salvation.

He must know the population Of every separate nation, The amount of immigration, And be wise in arbitration, And the art of navigation, And colonial annexation, And problems Australasian.

He must take his daily ration Of catalogue vexation, And endless botheration With ceaseless complication Of decimal notation, Or Cutter combination.

To complete his education, He must know the valuation Of all the publications Of many generations, With their endless variations, And true interpretations.

When he's spent a life in learning, If his lamp continues burning, When he's mastered all philosophy, And the science of theosophy, Grown as learned as Mezzofanti, As poetical as Dante, As wise as Magliabecchi, As profound as Mr. Lecky— Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge Than are found in any college; He may take his full degree Of Ph. or LL. D. And prepare to pass the portal That leads to life immortal.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Mostly from the Library Journal, New York.



CHAPTER 26.

RARE BOOKS.

There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature in which so large an amount of actual mis-information or of ignorance exists as that of the rarity of many books. The makers of second-hand catalogues are responsible for much of this, in describing the books which they wish to sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds from absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world. I have had multitudes of volumes offered for sale whose commercial value was hardly as many cents as was demanded in dollars by their ill-informed owners, who fancied the commonest book valuable because they "had never seen another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of any book are worth anything, unless he has had long experimental knowledge of the market for books both in America and in Europe.

What constitutes rarity in books is a question that involves many particulars. Thus, a given book may be rare in the United States which is abundant in London; or rare in London, when common enough in Germany. So books may be rare in one age which were easily found in another: and again, books on certain subjects may be so absorbed by public demand when events excite interest in that subject, as to take up most of the copies in market, and enhance the price of the remainder. Thus, Napoleon's conquering career in Egypt created a great demand for all books on Egypt and Africa. The scheme for founding a great French colony in Louisiana raised the price of all books and pamphlets on that region, which soon after fell into the possession of the United States. President Lincoln's assassination caused a demand for all accounts of the murder of the heads of nations. Latterly, all books on Cuba, the West Indies, and the Philippines have been in unprecedented demand, and dealers have raised the prices, which will again decline after the recent public interest in them has been supplanted by future events.

There is a broad distinction to be drawn between books which are absolutely rare, and those which are only relatively scarce, or which become temporarily rare, as just explained. Thus, a large share of the books published in the infancy of printing are rare; nearly all which appeared in the quarter century after printing began are very rare; and several among these last are superlatively rare. I may instance the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg and Schoeffer (1455?) of which only twenty-four copies are known, nearly all in public libraries, where they ought to be; the Mentz Psalter of the same printers, 1457, the first book ever printed with a date; and the first edition of Livy, Rome [1469] the only copy of which printed on vellum is in the British Museum Library.

One reason of the scarcity of books emanating from the presses of the fifteenth century is that of many of them the editions consisted of only two hundred to three hundred copies, of which the large number absorbed in public libraries, or destroyed by use, fire or decay, left very few in the hands of booksellers or private persons. Still, it is a great mistake to infer that all books printed before A. D. 1500 are rare. The editions of many were large, especially after about 1480, many were reprinted in several editions, and of such incunabula copies can even now be picked up on the continent at very low prices.

Contrary to a wide-spread belief, mere age adds very little to the value of any book, and oft-times nothing at all. All librarians are pestered to buy "hundred year old" treatises on theology or philosophy, as dry as the desert of Sahara, on the ground that they are both old and rare, whereas such books, two hundred and even three hundred years old, swarm in unsalable masses on the shelves of London and provincial booksellers at a few pence per volume. The reason that they are comparatively rare in this country is that nobody wants them, and so they do not get imported.

A rare book is, strictly speaking, only one which is found with difficulty, taking into view all the principal book markets of various countries. Very few books printed since 1650 have any peculiar value on account of their age. Of many books, both old and new, the reason of scarcity is that only a few copies actually remain, outside of public libraries, and these last, of course, are not for sale. This scarcity of copies is produced by a great variety of causes, most of which are here noted.

(1) The small number of the books originally printed leads to rarity. This is by no means peculiar to early impressions of the press: on the contrary, of some books printed only last year not one tenth as many exist as of a multitude of books printed four centuries ago. Not only privately printed books, not designed for publication, but some family or personal memoirs, or original works circulated only among friends, and many other publications belong to this class of rarities. The books printed at private presses are mostly rare. Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill press produced some thirty works from 1757 to 1789, in editions varying from fifty to six hundred copies. The Lee Priory press of Sir E. Brydges printed many literary curiosities, none of which had more than one hundred impressions. Most of the editions of the Shakespearean and other critical essays of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps were limited to forty copies, or even less. The genealogical and heraldic imprints of Sir Thomas Phillipps, at the Middle Hill press, 1819-59, numbering some hundreds of different works, were mostly confined to twenty copies each, and some to only six copies. Some of them are as rare as many manuscripts, of which several copies have been made, and sell at prices dictated by their scarcity. Most of them are in the Library of Congress. The Kelmscott press of William Morris printed in sumptuous style, improved upon the finest models of antique typography, a number of literary works, which now bring enhanced prices. Of the many historical and literary publications of the Roxburghe Club, the Percy Society, the Maitland, the Abbotsford, and the Bannatyne Clubs abroad, only thirty to one hundred copies were printed. Of those of the Prince Society, the Grolier Club, and others in America, only from 150 to 300 copies were printed, being for subscribers only. Rarity and enhanced prices necessarily result in all these cases. Of some books, only five to ten copies have been printed, or else, out of fifty or more printed, all but a very few have been ruthlessly destroyed, in order to give a fanciful value to the remainder. In these extreme instances, the rarity commonly constitutes almost the sole value of the work.

(2) Even where many copies have been printed, the destruction of the greater part of the edition has rendered the book very rare. Printing offices and book binderies are peculiarly subject to fires, and many editions have thus been consumed before more than a few copies have been issued. The great theological libraries edited by the Abbe J. P. Migne, the Patrologie Grecque, et Latine, owe their scarcity and advanced prices to a fire which consumed the entire remainder of the edition. All the copies of a large edition of "Twenty years among our savage Indians," by J. L. Humfreville, were destroyed by fire in a Hartford printing office in 1899, except two, which had been deposited in the Library of Congress, to secure the copyright. The whole edition of the Machina coelestis of Hevelius was burned, except the few copies which the author had presented to friends before the fire occurred. The earlier issues in Spanish of the Mexican and Peruvian presses prior to 1600 are exceedingly rare. And editions of books printed at places in the United States where no books are now published are sought for their imprint alone and seldom found.

(3) Many books have become rare because proscribed and in part destroyed by governmental or ecclesiastical authority. This applies more especially to the ages that succeeded the application of printing to the art of multiplying books. The freedom of many writers upon politics and popular rights led to the suppression of their books by kings, emperors or parliaments. At the same time, books of church history or doctrinal theology which departed, in however slight a degree, from the standard of faith proclaimed by the church, were put in the Index Expurgatorius, or list of works condemned in whole or in part as heretical and unlawful to be read. A long and melancholy record of such proscriptions, civil and ecclesiastical, is found in Gabriel Peignot's two volumes—Dictionnaire des livres condamnes au feu, supprimes, ou censures, etc. Works of writers of genius and versatile ability were thus proscribed, until it gave rise to the sarcasm among the scholars of Europe, that if one wanted to find what were the books best worth reading, he should look in the Index Expurgatorius. It appears to have been quite forgotten by those in authority that persecution commonly helps the cause persecuted, and that the best way to promote the circulation of a book is to undertake to suppress it. This age finds itself endowed with so many heretics that it is no longer possible to find purchasers at high prices for books once deemed unholy. Suppressed passages in later editions lead to a demand for the uncastrated copies which adds an element of enhanced cost in the market.

(4) Another source of rarity is the great extent and cost of many works, outrunning the ability of most collectors to buy or to accommodate them on their shelves. These costly possessions have been commonly printed in limited numbers for subscribers, or for distribution by governments under whose patronage they were produced. Such are some of the notable collections of early voyages, the great folios of many illustrated scientific works on natural history, local geography, etc. That great scholar, Baron von Humboldt, used jocosely to say that he could not afford to own a set of his own works, most of which are folios sumptuously printed, with finely engraved illustrations. The collection known as the "Grands et petits Voyages" of De Bry, the former in 13 volumes, relating to America, and finely illustrated with copper-plates produced in the highest style of that art, are among the rarest sets of books to find complete. The collection of voyages by Hulsius is equally difficult to procure. A really perfect set of Piranesi's great illustrated work on the art and architecture of ancient Rome is very difficult to acquire. The Acta Sanctorum, in the original edition, is very seldom found. But there is no room to multiply examples.

(5) What adds to the rarity and cost of certain books is the peculiarly expensive style or condition in which they are produced or preserved. Some few copies of an edition, for example, are printed on vellum, or on China or India or other choice paper, in colored ink or bronze, on colored paper, (rose-tinted, or green, blue or yellow,) on large paper, with broad margins, etc. Uncut copies always fetch a higher price than those whose edges are trimmed down in binding. To some book-collecting amateurs cut edges are an abomination. They will pay more for a book "in sheets," which they can bind after their own taste, than for the finest copy in calf or morocco with gilt edges. Some books, also, are exceptionally costly because bound in a style of superior elegance and beauty, or as having belonged to a crowned head or a noble person, ("books with a pedigree") or an eminent author, or having autographs of notable characters on the fly-leaves or title-pages, or original letters inserted in the volume. Others still are "extra-illustrated" works, in which one volume is swelled to several by the insertion of a multitude of portraits, autographs, and engravings, more or less illustrative of the contents of the book. This is called "Grangerising," from its origin in the practice of thus illustrating Granger's Biographical History of England. Book amateurs of expensive tastes are by no means rare, especially in England, France, and America, and the great commercial value placed upon uncut and rarely beautiful books, on which the highest arts of the printer and book-binder have been lavished, evinces the fact.

(6) The books emanating from the presses of famous printers are more sought for by collectors and libraries than other publications, because of their superior excellence. Sometimes this is found in the beauty of the type, or the clear and elegant press-work; sometimes in the printers' marks, monograms, engraved initial letters, head and tail-pieces, or other illustrations; and sometimes in the fine quality of the choice paper on which the books are printed. Thus, the productions of the presses of Aldus, Giunta, Bodoni, Etienne, Elzevir, Froben, Gutenberg, Fust and Schoeffer, Plantin, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Bulmer, Didot, Baskerville, Pickering, Whittingham, and others, are always in demand, and some of the choicer specimens of their art, if in fine condition, bring great prices in the second-hand book-shops, or the auction room. An example of Caxton's press is now almost unattainable, except in fragmentary copies. There are known to be only about 560 examples of Caxtons in the world, four-fifths of which are in England, and thirty-one of these are unique. His "King Arthur" (1485) brought L1950 at auction in 1885, and the Polychronicon (1482) was sold at the Ives sale (N. Y.) in 1891, for $1,500.

(7) In the case of all finely illustrated works, the earlier impressions taken, both of text and plates, are more rare, and hence more valuable, than the bulk of the edition. Thus, copies with "proofs before letters" of the steel engravings or etchings, sometimes command more than double the price of copies having only the ordinary plates. Each added impression deteriorates a little the sharp, clear outlines and brilliant impressions which are peculiar to the first copies printed.

(8) Of some books, certain volumes only are rare, and very costly in consequence. Thus, Burk's History of Virginia is common enough in three volumes, but volume 4 of the set, by Jones and Girardin, (1816,) is exceedingly rare, and seldom found with the others. The fifth and last volume of Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History is very scarce, while the others are readily procured. Of De Bry's Voyages, the 13th or final part of the American voyages is so rare as to be quite unattainable, unless after long years of search, and at an unconscionable price.

(9) The condition of any book is an unfailing factor in its price. Many, if not most books offered by second-hand dealers are shop-worn, soiled, or with broken bindings, or some other defect. A pure, clean copy, in handsome condition without and within, commands invariably an extra price. Thus the noted Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a huge portly folio, with 2,250 wood-cuts in the text, many of them by Albert Duerer or other early artists, is priced in London catalogues all the way from L7.15 up to L35, for identically the same edition. The difference is dependent wholly on the condition of the copies offered. Here is part of a description of the best copy: "Nuremberg Chronicle, by Schedel, printed by Koberger, first edition, 1493, royal folio, with fine original impressions of the 2,250 large wood-cuts of towns, historical events, portraits, etc., very tall copy, measuring 181/2 inches by 121/2, beautifully bound in morocco super extra, full gilt edges, by Riviere, L35. All the cuts are brilliant impressions, large and spirited. The book is genuine and perfect throughout; no washed leaves, and all the large capitals filled in by the rubricator by different colored inks: it has the six additional leaves at end, which Brunet says are nearly always wanting."

(10) The first editions printed of many books always command high prices. Not only is this true of the editio princeps of Homer, Virgil, Tacitus and other Greek and Roman writers, published in the infancy of printing, but of every noted author, of ancient or modern date. The edition printed during the life of the writer has had his own oversight and correction. And when more than one issue of his book has thus appeared, one sees how his maturer judgment has altered the substance or the style of his work. First editions of any very successful work always tend to become scarce, since the number printed is smaller, as a rule, and a large part of the issue is absorbed by public libraries. The earliest published writings of Tennyson, now found with difficulty, show how much of emendation and omission this great poet thought proper to make in his poems in after years. A first edition of Ivanhoe, 3 vols., 1820, brings L7 or more, in the original boards, but if rebound in any style, the first Waverley novels can be had at much less, though collectors are many.

(11) Another class of rare books is found in many local histories, both among the county histories of Great Britain, and those of towns and counties in the United States. Jay Gould's History of Delaware County, N. Y., published in 1856, and sought after in later times because of his note as a financier, is seldom found. Of family genealogies, too, printed in small editions, there are many which cannot be had at all, and many more which have risen to double or even quadruple price. The market value of these books, always dependent on demand, is enhanced by the wants of public libraries which are making or completing collections of these much sought sources of information.

(12) There is a class of books rarely found in any reputable book shop, and which ought to be much rarer than they are—namely, those that belong to the domain of indecent literature. Booksellers who deal in such wares often put them in catalogues under the head of facetiae, thus making a vile use of what should be characteristic only of books of wit or humor. Men of prurient tastes become collectors of such books, many of which are not without some literary merit, while many more are neither fit to be written, nor printed, nor read.

(13) There is a large variety of books that are sought mainly on account, not of their authors, nor for their value as literature, but for their illustrators. Many eminent artists (in fact most of those of any period) have made designs for certain books of their day. The reputation of an artist sometimes rests more upon his work given to the public in engravings, etchings, wood-cuts, etc., that illustrate books, than upon his works on canvas or in marble. Many finely illustrated works bear prices enhanced by the eagerness of collectors, who are bent upon possessing the designs of some favorite artist, while some amateurs covet a collection of far wider scope. This demand, although fitful, and sometimes evanescent, (though more frequently recurrent,) lessens the supply of illustrated books, and with the constant drafts of new libraries, raises prices. Turner's exquisite pictures in Rogers's Italy and Poems (1830-34) have floated into fame books of verse which find very few readers. Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") designed those immortal Wellers in Pickwick, which have delighted two whole generations of readers. The "Cruikshankiana" are sought with avidity, in whatever numerous volumes they adorn. Books illustrated with the designs of Bartolozzi, Marillier, Eisen, Gravelot, Moreau, Johannot, Grandville, Rowlandson, Bewick, William Blake, Stothard, Stanfield, Harvey, Martin, Cattermole, Birket Foster, Mulready, Tenniel, Maclise, Gilbert, Dalziel, Leighton, Holman Hunt, Doyle, Leech, Millais, Rossetti, Linton, Du Maurier, Sambourne, Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Haden, Hamerton, Whistler, Dore, Anderson, Darley, Matt Morgan, Thos. Nast, Vedder, and others, are in constant demand, especially for the early impressions of books in which their designs appear.

(14) Finally, that extensive class of books known as early Americana have been steadily growing rarer, and rising in commercial value, since about the middle of the nineteenth century. Books and pamphlets relating to any part of the American continent or islands, the first voyages, discoveries, narratives or histories of those regions, which were hardly noted or cared for a century ago, are now eagerly sought by collectors for libraries both public and private. In this field, the keen competition of American Historical Societies, and of several great libraries, besides the ever increasing number of private collectors with large means, has notably enhanced the prices of all desirable and rare books. Nor do the many reprints which have appeared much affect the market value of the originals, or first editions.

This rise in prices, while far from uniform, and furnishing many examples of isolated extravagance, has been marked. Witness some examples. The "Bay Psalm Book," Cambridge, Mass., A. D. 1640, is the Caxton of New England, so rare that no perfect copy has been found for many years. In 1855, Henry Stevens had the singular good fortune to find this typographical gem sandwiched in an odd bundle of old hymn books, unknown to the auctioneers or catalogue, at a London book sale. Keeping his own counsel, he bid off the lot at nine shillings, completed an imperfection in the book, from another imperfect copy, had it bound in Bedford's best, and sold it to Mr. Lenox's library at L80. In 1868, Stevens sold another copy to George Brinley for 150 guineas, which was bought for $1,200 in 1878, by C. Vanderbilt, at the Brinley sale.

John Smith's folio "Historie of Virginia," 1st ed., 1624, large paper, was sold to Brinley in 1874 at $1,275, and re-sold in 1878 for $1,800 to Mr. Lenox. In 1884 a copy on large paper brought L605 at the Hamilton Library sale in London. In 1899, a perfect copy of the large paper edition was presented to the Library of Congress by Gen. W. B. Franklin. Perfect copies of Smith's Virginia of 1624 on small paper have sold for $1,000, and those wanting some maps at $70 to $150.

The earlier English tracts relating to Virginia and New England, printed between 1608 and 1700, command large prices: e. g., Lescarbot's New France, [Canada,] 1609, $50 to $150; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635, $50 to $320; Hubbard's Present State of New England, Boston, 1677, $180 to $316.

It is curious to note, in contrast, the following record of prices at the sale of Dr. Bernard's Library in London, in 1686:

T. Morton's New England, 1615, eight pence; Lescarbot's New France, 1609, ten pence; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635, and three others, 5 s. 8 d.; nine Eliot Tracts, &c., 5 s. 2 d.; Hubbard's Present State of New England, 1677, 1 s.; Smith's Historie of Virginia, 1624, 4 s. 2 d.

The numerous and now rare works of Increase and Cotton Mather, printed from 1667 to 1728, though mostly sermons, are collected by a sufficient number of libraries to maintain prices at from $4 to $25 each, according to condition. They number over 470 volumes.

Several collections have been attempted of Frankliniana, or works printed at Benjamin Franklin's press, and of the many editions of his writings, with all books concerning the illustrious printer-statesman of America. His "Poor Richard's Almanacs," printed by him from 1733 to 1758, and by successors to 1798, are so rare that Mr. P. L. Ford found a visit to three cities requisite to see all of them. The Library of Congress possesses thirty-five years of these issues.

A word may be added as to early newspapers, of some special numbers of which prices that are literally "fabulous" are recorded. There are many reprints afloat of the first American newspaper, and most librarians have frequent offers of the Ulster County, (N. Y.) Gazette of Jan. 10, 1800, in mourning for the death of Washington, a genuine copy of which is worth money, but the many spurious reprints (which include all those offered) are worth nothing.

Of many rare early books reprints or facsimiles are rife in the market, especially of those having but few leaves; these, however, are easily detected by an expert eye, and need deceive no one.

Of some scarce books, it may be said that they are as rare as the individuals who want them: and of a very few, that they are as rare as the extinct dodo. In fact, volumes have been written concerning extinct books, not without interest to the bibliomaniac who is fired with the passion for possessing something which no one else has got. Some books are quite as worthless as they are rare. But books deemed worthless by the common or even by the enlightened mind are cherished as treasures by many collectors. The cook-book, entitled Le Pastissier francois, an Elzevir of 1655, is so rare as to have brought several times its weight in gold. Nearly all the copies of some books have been worn to rags by anglers, devout women, cooks, or children.

When a book is sold at a great price as "very rare," it often happens that several copies come into the market soon after, and, there being no demand, the commercial value is correspondingly depressed. The books most sure of maintaining full prices are first editions of master-pieces in literature. Fitzgerald's version of Omar Khayyam was bought by nobody when Quaritch first published it in 1859. After eight years, he put the remainder of the edition,—a paper-covered volume—down to a penny each. When the book had grown into fame, and the many variations in later issues were discovered, this first edition, no longer procurable, rose to L21, the price actually paid by Mr. Quaritch himself at a book auction in 1898!

Auction sales of libraries having many rare books have been frequent in London and Paris. The largest price yet obtained for any library was reached in 1882-3, when that of Mr. Wm. Beckford brought L73,551, being an average of nearly $40 a volume. But W. C. Hazlitt says of this sale, "the Beckford books realized perfectly insane prices, and were afterwards re-sold for a sixth or even tenth of the amount, to the serious loss of somebody, when the barometer had fallen."

The second-hand bookseller, having the whole range of printed literature for his field, has a great advantage in dealing with book collectors over the average dealer, who has to offer only new books, or such as are "in print."

It may be owned that the love of rare books is chiefly sentimental. He who delights to spend his days or his nights in the contemplation of black-letter volumes, quaint title-pages, fine old bindings, and curious early illustrations, may not add to the knowledge or the happiness of mankind, but he makes sure of his own.

The passion for rare books, merely because of their rarity, is a low order of the taste for books. But the desire to possess and read wise old books which have been touched by the hoar frost of time is of a higher mood. The first impression of Paradise Lost (1667) with its quarto page and antique orthography, is it not more redolent of the author's age than the elegant Pickering edition, or the one illustrated by John Martin or Gustave Dore? When you hold in your hand Shakespeare's "Midsommer Night's Dream" (A. D. 1600) and read with fresh admiration and delight the exquisite speeches of Oberon and Titania, may not the thought that perhaps that very copy may once have been held in the immortal bard's own hand send a thrill through your own?

When you turn over the classic pages of Homer illustrated by Flaxman, that "dear sculptor of eternity," as William Blake called him, or drink in the beauty of those delicious landscapes of Turner, that astonishing man, who shall wonder at your desire to possess them?

The genuine book lover is he who reads books; who values them for what they contain, not for their rarity, nor for the preposterous prices which have been paid for them. To him, book-hunting is an ever-enduring delight. Of all the pleasures tasted here below, that of the book lover in finding a precious and long sought volume is one of the purest and most innocent. In books, he becomes master of all the kingdoms of the world.



CHAPTER 27.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

To the book collector and the Librarian, books of bibliography are the tools of the profession. Without them he would be lost in a maze of literature without a clue. With them, his path is plain, and, in exact proportion to his acquaintance with them, will his knowledge and usefulness extend. Bibliography may be defined as the science which treats of books, of their authors, subjects, history, classification, cataloguing, typography, materials (including paper, printing and binding) dates, editions, etc. This compound word, derived from two Greek roots, Biblion, book, and graphein, to write, has many analogous words, some of which, ignorantly used to express a bibliographer, may be set down for distinction: as, for example—Bibliopole—a seller of books, often erroneously applied to a librarian, who buys but never sells: Bibliophile, a lover of books, a title which he should always exemplify: Bibliopegist, a book-binder: Bibliolater, a worshipper of books: Bibliophobe, a hater of books: Bibliotaph, a burier of books—one who hides or conceals them: Bibliomaniac, or bibliomane, one who has a mania or passion for collecting books. (Bibliomania, some one has said, is a disease: Bibliophily is a science: The first is a parody of the second.) Bibliophage, or bibliophagist, a book-eater, or devourer of books. Bibliognost, one versed in the science of books. Biblioklept, a book thief. (This, you perceive, is from the same Greek root as kleptomaniac.) Bibliogist, one learned about books, (the same nearly as bibliographer); and finally, Bibliothecary, a librarian.

This brings me to say, in supplementing this elementary list (needless for some readers) that Bibliotheca is Latin for a library; Bibliotheque is French for the same; Bibliothecaire is French for Librarian, while the French word Libraire means book seller or publisher, though often mistaken by otherwise intelligent persons, for librarian, or library.

The word "bibliotechny" is not found in any English dictionary known to me, although long in use in its equivalent forms in France and Germany. It means all that belongs to the knowledge of the book, to its handling, cataloguing, and its arrangement upon the shelves of a library. It is also applied to the science of the formation of libraries, and their complete organization. It is employed in the widest and most extended sense of what may be termed material or physical bibliography. Bibliotechny applies, that is to say, to the technics of the librarian's work—to the outside of the books rather than the inside—to the mechanics, not the metaphysics of the profession. The French word "Bibliotheconomie," much in use of late years, signifies much the same thing as Bibliotechnie, and we translate it, not into one word, but two, calling it "library economy." This word "economy" is not used in the most current sense—as significant of saving—but in the broad, modern sense of systematic order, or arrangement.

There are two other words which have found their way into Murray's Oxford Dictionary, the most copious repository of English words, with illustrations of their origin and history, ever published, namely, Biblioclast—a destroyer of books (from the same final root as iconoclast) and Bibliogony, the production of books. I will add that out of the fifteen or more words cited as analogous to Bibliography, only three are found used earlier than the last quarter century, the first use of most having been this side of 1880. This is a striking instance of the phenomenal growth of new words in our already rich and flexible English tongue. Carlyle even has the word "Bibliopoesy," the making of books,—from Biblion, and poiein—to make.

Public libraries are useful to readers in proportion to the extent and ready supply of the helps they furnish to facilitate researches of every kind. Among these helps a wisely selected collection of books of reference stands foremost. Considering the vast extent and opulence of the world of letters, and the want of experience of the majority of readers in exploring this almost boundless field, the importance of every key which can unlock its hidden stores becomes apparent. The printed catalogue of no single library is at all adequate to supply full references, even to its own stores of knowledge; while these catalogues are, of course, comparatively useless as to other stores of information, elsewhere existing. Even the completest and most extensive catalogue in the world, that of the British Museum Library, although now extended to more than 370 folio volumes in print, representing 3,000 volumes in manuscript, is not completed so as to embrace the entire contents of that rich repository of knowledge.

From lack of information of the aid furnished by adequate books of reference in a special field, many a reader goes groping in pursuit of references or information which might be found in some one of the many volumes which may be designated as works of bibliography. The diffidence and reserve of many students in libraries, and the mistaken fear of giving trouble to librarians, frequently deprives them of even those aids which a few words of inquiry might bring forth from the ready knowledge of the custodians in charge.

That is the best library, and he is the most useful librarian, by whose aid every reader is enabled to put his finger on the fact he wants, just when it is wanted. In attaining this end it is essential that the more recent, important, and valuable aids to research in general science, as well as in special departments of each, should form a part of the library. In order to make a fit selection of books (and all libraries are practically reduced to a selection, from want of means to possess the whole) it is indispensable to know the relative value of the books concerned. Many works of reference of great fame, and once of great value, have become almost obsolete, through the issue of more extensive and carefully edited works in the same field. While a great and comprehensive library should possess every work of reference, old or new, which has aided or may aid the researches of scholars, (not forgetting even the earlier editions of works often reprinted), the smaller libraries, on the other hand, are compelled to exercise a close economy of selection. The most valuable works of reference, among which the more copious and extensive bibliographies stand first, are frequently expensive treasures, and it is important to the librarian furnishing a limited and select library to know what books he can best afford to do without. If he cannot buy both the Manuel du libraire by Brunet, in five volumes, and the Tresor des livres rares et precieux of Graesse, seven volumes, both of which are dictionaries of the choicer portions of literature, it is important to know that Brunet is the more indispensable of the two. From the 20,000 reference books lying open to the consultation of all readers in the great rotunda of the British Museum reading room, to the small and select case of dictionaries, catalogues, cyclopaedias, and other works of reference in a town or subscription library, the interval is wide indeed. But where we cannot have all, it becomes the more important to have the best; and the reader who has at hand for ready reference the latest and most copious dictionary of each of the leading languages of the world, two or three of the best general bibliographies, the most copious catalogue raisonne of the literature in each great department of science, the best biographical dictionaries, and the latest and most copious encyclopaedias issued from the press, is tolerably well equipped for the prosecution of his researches.