Also, "If, after nulla bona returned, a testatum be entered upon the roll, quod devastavit, a writ of inquiry shall be directed to the sheriff, and if by inquisition the devastavit be found and returned, there shall be a scire facias quare executio non de propriis bonis, and if upon that the sheriff returns scire feci, the executor or administrator may appear and traverse the inquisition."

Again, "If the record of Nisi prius be a die Sancti Trinitatis in tres Septimanas nisi a 27 June, prius venerit, which is the day after the day in Bank, which was mistaken for a die Sancti Michaelis, it shall not be amended."

It is interesting to observe that at one end of the island a panel means twelve perplexed agriculturists, who, after having taken an oath to act according to their consciences, are starved till they are of one mind on some complicated question; while, at the other end, the same term applies to the criminal on whose conduct they are going to give their verdict. It would be difficult to decide which is the more happy application; but it must be admitted that we are a great way behind the South in our power of selecting a nomenclature immeasurably distant in meaning from the thing signified. We speak of a bond instead of a mortgage, and we adjudge where we ought to foreclose. We have no such thing as chattels, either personal or real.[46] If you want to know the English law of book-debts, you will have to look for it under the head of Assumpsit in a treatise on Nisi Prius, while a lawyer of Scotland would unblushingly use the word itself, and put it in his index. So, too, our bailments are merely spoken of as bills, notes, or whatever a merchant might call them. Our garneshee is merely a common debtor. Baron and feme we call husband and wife, and coverture we term marriage.

[Footnote 46: A late venerable practitioner in a humble department of the law, who wanted to write a book, and was recommended to try his hand at a translation of Latin law-maxims as a thing much wanted, was considerably puzzled by the maxim, "Catella realis non potest legari;" nor was he quite relieved when he turned up his Ainsworth and found that catella means a "little puppy." There was nothing for it, however, but obedience, so that he had to give currency to the remarkable principle of law, that "a genuine little whelp cannot be left in legacy." He also translated "messis sequitur sementem," with a fine simplicity, into "the harvest follows the seed-time;" and "actor sequitur forum rei," he made "the agent must be in court when the case is going on." Copies of the book containing these gems are exceedingly rare, some malicious person having put the author up to their absurdity.]

Still, for the honour of our country, it is possible to find a few technicalities which would do no discredit to our neighbours. Where one of them would bring a habeas corpus—a name felicitously expressive, according to the English method, of civil liberty—an inhabitant of the North, in the same unfortunate position, would take to running his letters. We have no turbary, or any other easement; but, to compensate us, we have thirlage, outsucken multures, insucken multures, and dry multures; as also we have a soumin and roumin, as any one who has been so fortunate as to hear Mr Outram's pathetic lyric on that interesting right of pasturage will remember, in conjunction with pleasing associations. To do the duty of a duces tecum we have a diligence against havers. We have no capias ad faciendum (abbreviated cap ad fac), nor have we the fieri facias, familiarly termed fi fa, but we have perhaps as good in the in meditatione fugae warrant, familiarly abbreviated into fugie, as poor Peter Peebles termed it, when he burst in upon the party assembled at Justice Foxley's, exclaiming, "Is't here they sell the fugie warrants?"[47]

[Footnote 47: There are two old methods of paying rent in Scotland—Kane and Carriages; the one being rent in kind from the farmyard, the other being an obligation to furnish the landlord with a certain amount of carriage, or rather cartage. In one of the vexed cases of domicile, which had found its way into the House of Lords, a Scotch lawyer argued that a landed gentleman had shown his determination to abandon his residence in Scotland by having given up his "kane and carriages." It is said that the argument went further than he expected—the English lawyers admitting that it was indeed very strong evidence of an intended change of domicile when the laird not only ceased to keep a carriage, but actually divested himself of his walking-cane.]

I am not sure but, in the very mighty heart of all legal formality and technicality—the Statutes at large—some amusing as well as instructive things might be found. Let me offer a guiding hint to the investigator ambitious of entering on this arduous field. The princely collector will, of course, put himself in possession of the magnificent edition of the Statutes issued by the Record Commission, but let not the unprofessional person who must look short of this imagine that he will find satisfaction in the prim pages of a professional lawyer's modern edition. These, indeed, are not truly the Statutes at large, but rather their pedantic and conventional descendants, who have taken out letters of administration to their wild ancestors. They omit all the repealed Statutes in which these ancestors might be found really at large sowing their wild oats, and consequently all that would give them interest and zest for those in search of such qualities.

It is not, for instance, in the decorous quartos of Roughhead, but in the hoary blackletter folios, looking older than they are—for blackletter adhered to the Statutes after it had been cast off by other literature—that one will find such specimens of ancestral legislation as the following:—

ATTORNEYS.—(33 Henry VI. c. 7.)

"Item: Whereas of time not long past, within the city of Norwich, and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, there were no more but six or eight atturneys at the most coming to the King's Courts, in which time great tranquillity reigned in the said city and counties, little trouble or vexation was made by untrue or foreign suits, and now so it is, that in the said city and counties there be four score atturneys or more, the more part of them having no other thing to live upon, but only his gain by the practise of atturneyship: and also the more part of them not being of sufficient knowledge to be an atturney, which come to every fair, market, and other places, where is any assembly of people, exhorting, procuring, moving, and inciting the people to attempt untrue and foreign suits for small trespasses, little offences, and small sums of debt, whose actions be triable and determinable in Court Barons, whereby proceed many suits, more of evil will and malice than of truth of the thing, to the manifold vexations and no little damage of the inhabitants of the said city and counties, and all to the perpetual diminution of all the Court Barons in the said counties, unless convenient remedy be provided in this behalf. The foresaid Lord the King, considering the premises, by the advice, assent, and authority aforesaid, hath ordained and stablished that at all times, from hencefort, there shall be but six common atturneys in the said county of Norfolk, and six common atturneys in the said county of Suffolk, and two common atturneys in the said city of Norwich, to be atturneys in the Courts of Record."

FUSTIAN.—(11 Henry VII. c. 27.)

"Now so it is, that divers persons, by subtilty and undue sleights and means, have deceivably imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with the which irons, in the most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw the said irons over the said fustians unshorn; by means whereof they pluck off both the nap and cotton of the same fustians, and break commonly both the ground and threeds in sunder, and after by crafty sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people fine, whole, and sound: and also they raise up the cotton of such fustians, and then take a light candle and set it in the fustian burning, which sindgeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian from the one end to the other down to the hard threeds, in stead of shering, and after that put them in colour, and so subtilly dress them that their false work cannot be espied without it be by workmen sherers of such fustians, or by the wearers of the same, and so by such subtilties, whereas fustians made in doublets or put to any other use, were wont and might endure the space of two years and more, will not endure now whole by the space of four months scarcely, to the great hurt of the poor commons and serving men of this realm, to the great damage, loss, and deceit of the King's true subjects, buyers and wearers of such fustians," &c.

The history of statute-making is not absolutely divested of pleasantry. The best tradition connected with it at present arising in the memory is not to be brought to book, and must be given as a tradition of the time when George III. was king. Its tenor is, that a bill which proposed, as the punishment of an offence, to levy a certain pecuniary penalty, one half thereof to go to his Majesty and the other half to the informer, was altered in committee, in so far that, when it appeared in the form of an act, the punishment was changed to whipping and imprisonment, the destination being left unaltered.

It is wonderful that such mistakes are not of frequent occurrence when one remembers the hot hasty work often done by committees, and the complex entanglements of sentences on which they have to work.[48] Bentham was at the trouble of counting the words in one sentence of an Act of Parliament, and found that, beginning with "Whereas" and ending with the word "repealed," it was precisely the length of an ordinary three-volume novel. To offer the reader that sentence on the present occasion would be rather a heavy jest, and as little reasonable as the revenge offered to a village schoolmaster who, having complained that the whole of his little treatise on the Differential Calculus was printed bodily in one of the earlier editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (not so profitable as the later), was told that he was welcome, in his turn, to incorporate the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the next edition of his little treatise.

[Footnote 48: A polite correspondent reminds me of the Registration Act, 52 G. III. c. 156, in which the fruit of penalties is divided between the informer, who gets one half, and certain charitable purposes, to which the other is devoted, while the only penalty set forth in the Act is transportation for fourteen years.]

In the supposition, however, that there are few readers who, like Lord King, can boast of having read the Statutes at large through, I venture to give a title of an Act—a title only, remember, of one of the bundle of acts passed in one session—as an instance of the comprehensiveness of English statute law, and the lively way in which it skips from one subject to another. It is called—

"An Act to continue several laws for the better regulating of pilots, for the conducting of ships and vessels from Dover, Deal, and the Isle of Thanet, up the River Thames and Medway; and for the permitting rum or spirits of the British sugar plantations to be landed before the duties of excise are paid thereon; and to continue and amend an Act for preventing fraud in the admeasurement of coals within the city and liberties of Westminster, and several parishes near thereunto; and to continue several laws for preventing exactions of occupiers of locks and wears upon the River Thames westward; and for ascertaining the rates of water-carriage upon the said river; and for the better regulation and government of seamen in the merchant service; and also to amend so much of an Act made during the reign of King George I. as relates to the better preservation of salmon in the River Ribble; and to regulate fees in trials and assizes at nisi prius," &c.

But this gets tiresome, and we are only half way through the title after all. If the reader wants the rest of it, as also the substantial Act itself, whereof it is the title, let him turn to the 23d of Geo. II., chap. 26.

No wonder, if he anticipated this sort of thing, that Bacon should have commended "the excellent brevity of the old Scots acts." Here, for instance, is a specimen, an actual statute at large, such as they were in those pigmy days:—

"Item, it is statute that gif onie of the King's lieges passes in England, and resides and remains there against the King's will, he shall be halden as Traiter to the King."

Here is another, very comprehensive, and worth a little library of modern statute-books, if it was duly enforced:—

"Item, it is statute and ordained, that all our Sovereign lord's lieges being under his obeisance, and especially the Isles, be ruled by our Sovereign lord's own laws, and the common laws of the realm, and none other laws."

The Irish statute-book conveys more expressively than any narrative the motley contrasts of a history in the fabric of which the grotesque and the tragic are so closely interwoven. So early as the middle of the sixteenth century, English statesmen discover usquebaugh, and pass an act to extinguish it at once: "forasmuch as aqua vitae, a drink nothing profitable to be daily drunken and used, is now universally throughout this realm of Ireland made, and especially in the borders of the Irishry, and for the furniture of Irishmen, and thereby much corn, grain, and other things are consumed, spent, and wasted," and so forth.

To get men to shave and wash themselves, and generally to conform to the standard of civilisation in their day, seems innocent if not laudable; yet is there a world of heartburning, strife, oppression, and retaliatory hatred expressed in the title of "an act, that the Irishmen dwelling in the counties of Dublin, Meath, Uriell, and Kildare, shall go apparelled like Englishmen, and wear their beards after the English manner, swear allegiance, and take English surnames." Further on we have a whole series of acts, with a conjunction of epithets in their titles which, at the present day, sounds rather startling, "for the better suppressing Tories, Robbers, and Rapparees, and for preventing robberies, burglaries, and other heinous crimes." The classes so associated having an unreasonable dislike of being killed, difficulties are thus put in the way of those beneficially employed in killing them, insomuch that they, "upon the killing of any one of their number, are thereby so alarmed and put upon their keeping, that it hath been found impracticable for such person or persons to discover and apprehend or kill any more of them, whereby they are discouraged from discovering and apprehending or killing," and so forth. There is a strange and melancholy historical interest in these grotesque enactments, since they almost verbatim repeat the legislation about the Highland clans passed a century earlier by the Lowland Parliament of Scotland.

There is one shelf of the law library laden with a store of which few will deny the attractive interest—that devoted to the literature of Criminal Trials. It will go hard indeed, if, besides the reports of mere technicalities, there be not here some glimpses of the sad romances which lie at their heart; and, at all events, when the page passes a very slight degree beyond the strictly professional, the technicalities will be found mingled with abundant narrative. The State Trials, for instance—surely a lawyer's book—contains the materials of a thousand romances: nor are these all attached to political offences; as, fortunately, the book is better than its name, and makes a virtuous effort to embrace all the remarkable trials coming within the long period covered by the collection. Some assistance may be got, at the same time, from minor luminaries, such as the Newgate Calendar—not to be commended, certainly, for its literary merits, but full of matters strange and horrible, which, like the gloomy forest of the Castle of Indolence, "sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood."

There are many other books where records of remarkable crimes are mixed up with much rubbish, as, The Terrific Register, God's Revenge against Murder, a little French book called Histoire Generale des Larrons (1623), and if the inquirer's taste turn towards maritime crimes, The History of the Bucaniers, by Esquemeling. A little work in four volumes, called the Criminal Recorder, by a student in the Inner Temple, can be commended as a sort of encyclopaedia of this kind of literature. It professes—and is not far from accomplishing the profession—to give biographical sketches of notorious public characters, including "murderers, traitors, pirates, mutineers, incendiaries, defrauders, rioters, sharpers, highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, swindlers, housebreakers, coiners, receivers, extortioners, and other noted persons who have suffered the sentence of the law for criminal offences." By far the most luxurious book of this kind, however, in the English language, is Captain Johnston's Lives of Highwaymen and Pirates. It is rare to find it now complete. The old folio editions have been often mutilated by over use; the many later editions in octavo are mutilated by design of their editors; and for conveying any idea of the rough truthful descriptiveness of a book compiled in the palmy days of highway robbery, they are worthless.

All our literature of that nature must, however, yield to the French Causes Celebres, a term rendered so significant by the value and interest of the book it names, as to have been borrowed by writers in this country to render their works attractive. It must be noted as a reason for the success of this work, and also of the German collection by Feuerbach, that the despotic Continental method of procedure by secret inquiry affords much better material for narrative than ours by open trial. We make, no doubt, a great drama of a criminal trial. Everything is brought on the stage at once, and cleared off before an audience excited so as no player ever could excite; but it loses in reading; while the Continental inquiry, with its slow secret development of the plot, makes the better novel for the fireside.

There is a method by which, among ourselves, the trial can be imbedded in a narrative which may carry down to later generations a condensed reflection of that protracted expectation and excitement which disturb society during the investigations and trials occasioned by any great crime. This is by "illustrating" the trial, through a process resembling that which has been already supposed to have been applied to one of Watts's hymns. In this instance there will be all the newspaper scraps—all the hawker's broadsides—the portraits of the criminal, of the chief witnesses, the judges, the counsel, and various other persons,—everything in literature or art that bears on the great question.

He who inherits or has been able to procure a collection of such illustrated trials, a century or so old, is deemed fortunate among collectors, for he can at any time raise up for himself the spectre as it were of the great mystery and exposure that for weeks was the absorbing topic of attraction for millions. The curtains are down—the fire burns bright—the cat purrs on the rug; Atticus, soused in his easy-chair, cannot be at the trouble of going to see Macbeth or Othello—he will sup full of horrors from his own stores. Accordingly he takes down an unseemly volume, characterised by a flabby obesity by reason of the unequal size of the papers contained in it, all being bound to the back, while the largest only reach the margin. The first thing at opening is the dingy pea-green-looking paragraph from the provincial newspaper, describing how the reapers, going to their work at dawn, saw the clay beaten with the marks of struggle, and, following the dictates of curiosity, saw a bloody rag sticking on a tree, the leaves also streaked with red, and, lastly, the instrument of violence hidden in the moss; next comes from another source the lamentations for a young woman who had left her home—then the excitement of putting that and that together—the search, and the discovery of the body. The next paragraph turns suspense into exulting wrath: the perpetrator has been found with his bloody shirt on—a scowling murderous villain as ever was seen—an eminent poacher, and fit for anything. But the next paragraph turns the tables. The ruffian had his own secrets of what he had been about that night, and at last makes a clean breast. It would have been a bad business for him at any other time, but now he is a revealing angel, for he noted this and that in the course of his own little game, and gives justice the thread which leads to a wonderful romance, and brings home desperate crime to that quarter where, from rank, education, and profession, it was least likely to be found. Then comes the trial and the execution; and so, at a sitting, has been swallowed all that excitement which, at some time long ago, chained up the public in protracted suspense for weeks.

The reader will see, from what I have just been saying, that I am not prepared to back Charles Lamb's Index Expurgatorius.[49] It is difficult, almost impossible, to find the book from which something either valuable or amusing may not be found, if the proper alembic be applied. I know books that are curious, and really amusing, from their excessive badness. If you want to find precisely how a thing ought not to be said, you take one of them down, and make it perform the service of the intoxicated Spartan slave. There are some volumes in which, at a chance opening, you are certain to find a mere platitude delivered in the most superb and amazing climax of big words, and others in which you have a like happy facility in finding every proposition stated with its stern forward, as sailors say, or in some other grotesque mismanagement of composition. There are no better farces on or off the stage than when two or three congenial spirits ransack books of this kind, and compete with each other in taking fun out of them.

[Footnote 49: "In this catalogue of books which are no books—biblia a biblia—I reckon court calendars, directories, pocket-books, draught-boards bound and lettered on the back, scientific treatises, almanacs, statutes at large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and generally all those volumes which 'no gentleman's library should be without;' the histories of Flavius Josephus (that learned Jew) and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these exceptions, I can read almost anything. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, so unexcluding. I confess that it moves my spleen to see these things in books' clothing perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what 'seem its leaves,' to come bolt upon a withering population essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find—Adam Smith. To view a well-arranged assortment of block-headed encyclopaedias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) set out in an array of russia or morocco, when a tithe of that good leather would comfortably reclothe my shivering folios, would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look like himself again in the world. I never see these impostors but I long to strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils."—Essays of Elia.]

There is a solid volume, written in an inquiring spirit, but in a manner which reminds one of deep calling unto deep, about the dark superstitions of a country which was once a separate European kingdom. I feel a peculiar interest in it, from the author having informed me, by way of communicating an important fact in literary history, and also as an example to be followed by literary aspirants, that, before committing the book to the press, he had written it over sixteen times. It would have been valuable to have his first manuscript, were it only that one might form some idea of the steps by which he had brought it into the condition in which it was printed. But its perusal in that condition was not entirely thrown away, since I was able to recommend it to a teacher of composition, as containing, within a moderate compass—after the manner, in fact, of a handbook—good practical specimens of every description of depravity of style of which the English language is susceptible.

In the present day, when few scholars have opportunities of enriching the world with their prison hours, perhaps the best conditions for testing how far any volume or portion of printed matter, however hopeless-looking, may yet yield edifying or amusing matter to a sufficient pressure, will occur when a bookish person finds himself imprisoned in a country inn, say for twenty-four hours. Such things are not impossible in this age of rapid movement. It is not long since a train, freighted with musical artistes, sent express to perform at a provincial concert and be back immediately in town for other engagements, were caught by a great snow-storm which obliterated the railway, and had to live for a week or two in a wayside alehouse, in one of the dreariest districts of Scotland. The possessor and user of a large library undergoing such a calamity in a modified shape will be able to form a conception of the resources at his disposal, and to calculate how long it will take him to exhaust the intellectual treasures at his command, just as a millionaire, haunted as such people sometimes are by the dread of coming on the parish, might test how long a life his invested capital would support by spending a winter in a Shetland cottage, and living on what he could procure. Having exhausted all other sources of excitement and interest, the belated traveller is supposed to call for the literature of the establishment. Perhaps the Directory of the county town is the only available volume. Who shall say what the belated traveller may make of this? He may do a turn in local statistics, or, if his ambition rises higher, he may pursue some valuable ethnological inquiries, trying whether Celtic or Saxon names prevail, and testing the justice of Mr Thierry's theory by counting the Norman patronymics, and observing whether any of them are owned by persons following plebeian and sordid occupations. If in after-life the sojourner should come in contact with people interested in the politics or business of that county town, he will surprise them by exhibiting his minute acquaintance with its affairs.

If, besides the Directory, an Almanac, old or new, is to be had, the analysis may be conducted on a greatly widened basis. The rotations of the changes of the seasons may at the same time suggest many appropriate reflections on the progress of man from the cradle to the grave, and all that he meets with between the alpha and omega; and if the prisoner is a man of genius, the announcements of eclipses and other solar phenomena will suggest trains of thought which he can carry up to any height of sublimity. A person in the circumstances supposed, after he has exhausted the Directory and the Almanac, may perhaps be led to read (if he can get) Zimmerman On Solitude, Hervey's Meditations, Watts on the Improvement of the Mind, or Hannah More's Sacred Dramas. Who knows what he may be reduced to? I remember the great Irish liberator telling how, when once detained in an inn in Switzerland, he could find no book to beguile the time with but the Lettres Provinciales of Pascal. I have no doubt that the coerced perusal of them to which he had to submit did him a deal of good.

Let us imagine that nothing better is to be found than the advertising sheet of an old newspaper—never mind. Let the unfortunate man fall to and read the advertisements courageously, and make the best of them. An advertisement is itself a fact, though it may sometimes be the vehicle of a falsehood; and, as some one has remarked, he who has a fact in hand is like a turner with a piece of wood in his lathe, which he can manipulate to his liking, tooling it in any way, as a plain cylinder or a richly ornamented toy. There have been fortunate instances of people driven to read them finding good jokes and other enjoyable things in advertisements—such things as make one almost regret that so little attention has been paid to this department of literature.[50] Besides the spontaneous undesigned attractions to be found in it, there have been men of distinguished parts whose powers have found development in the advertisement line. George Robins, a hero in his day, is surely not yet quite forgotten; and though he were, doubtless his works will be restored to notice by future philosophers who will perhaps find in them the true spirit of the nineteenth century. Advertisements, more prosaic than his, however, bring us into the very heart of life and business, and contain a world of interest. Suppose that the dirty broadside you pick up in the dingy inn's soiled room contains the annual announcement of the reassembling of the school in which you spent your own years of schoolboy life—what a mingled and many-figured romance does it recall of all that has befallen to yourself and others since the day when the same advertisement made you sigh, because the hour was close at hand when you were to leave home and all its homely ways to dwell among strangers! Going onward, you remember how each one after another ceased to be a stranger, and twined himself about your heart; and then comes the reflection, Where are they all now? You remember how

"He, the young and strong, who cherished Noble longings for the strife, By the roadside fell and perished, Weary with the march of life."

You recall to your memory also those two inseparables—linked together, it would seem, because they were so unlike. The one, gentle, dreamy, and romantic, was to be the genius of the set; but alas, he "took to bad habits," and oozed into the slime of life, imperceptibly almost, hurting no creature but himself—unless it may be that to some parent or other near of kin his gentle facility may have caused keener pangs than others give by cruelty and tyranny. The other, bright-eyed, healthy, strong, and keen-tempered—the best fighter and runner and leaper in the school—the dare-devil who was the leader in every row—took to Greek much about the time when his companion took to drinking, got a presentation, wrote some wonderful things about the functions of the chorus, and is now on the fair road to a bishopric.

[Footnote 50: Take, for instance, the announcement of the wants of an affluent and pious elderly lady, desirous of having the services of a domestic like-minded with herself, who appeals to the public for a "groom to take charge of two carriage-horses of a serious turn of mind." So also the simple-hearted innkeeper, who founds on his "limited charges and civility;" or the description given by a distracted family of a runaway member, who consider that they are affording valuable means for his identification by saying, "age not precisely known—but looks older than he is."]

Next arises the vision of "the big boy," the lout—the butt of every one, even of the masters, who, when any little imp did a thing well, always made the appropriate laudation tell to the detriment of the big boy, as if he were bound to be as superfluous in intellect as in flesh. He has sufficiently dinned into him to make him thoroughly modest, poor fellow, how all great men were little. Napoleon was little, so was Frederic the Great, William III., the illustrious Conde, Pope, Horace, Anacreon, Campbell, Tom Moore, and Jeffrey. His relations have so thoroughly given in to the prejudice against him, that they get him a cadetship because he is fit for nothing at home; and now, years afterwards, the newspapers resound with his fame—how, when at the quietest of all stations when the mutiny suddenly broke out in its most murderous shape, and even experienced veterans lost heart, he remained firm and collected, quietly developing, one after another, resources of which he was not himself aware, and in the end putting things right, partly by stern vigour, but more by a quiet tact and genial appreciation of the native character. But what has become of the Dux—him who, in the predictions of all, teachers and taught, was to render the institution some day illustrious by occupying the Woolsack, or the chief place at the Speaker's right hand? A curious destiny is his: at a certain point the curve of his ascent was as it were truncated, and he took to the commonest level of ordinary life. He may now be seen, staid and sedate in his walk, which brings him, with a regularity that has rendered him useful to neighbours owning erratic watches, day by day to a lofty three-legged stool, mounted on which, all his proceedings confirm the high character retained by him through several years for the neatness of his handwriting, and especially for his precision in dotting his i's and stroking his t's.

This is all along of the use which the reflective man may make of an old advertisement. If it be old, the older the better—the more likely is it to contain matter of curious interest or instruction about the ways of men. To show this, I reprint two advertisements from British newspapers.

From the Public Advertiser of 28th March 1769.

"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK GIRL, the property of J. B——, eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well: is of an excellent temper, and willing disposition.

"Inquire of Mr Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church in the Strand."

From the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 18th April 1768.

"A BLACK BOY TO SELL.

"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK BOY, with long hair, stout made, and well-limbed—is good tempered, can dress hair, and take care of a horse indifferently. He has been in Britain nearly three years.

"Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for L40. He belongs to Captain ABERCROMBIE at Broughton.

"This advertisement not to be repeated."

There was at that time probably more of this description of property in Britain than in Virginia. It had become fashionable, as one may see in Hogarth. Such advertisements—they were abundant—might furnish an apt text on which a philosophical historian could speculate on the probable results to this country, had not Mansfield gone to the root of the matter by denying all property in slaves.

So much for the chances which still remain to the devourer of books, if, after having consumed all the solid volumes within his reach, he should be reduced to shreds and patches of literature,—like a ship's crew having resort to shoe-leather and the sweepings of the locker.



Pretenders.

But now to return to the point whence we started—the disposition, and almost the necessity, which the true enthusiast in the pursuit feels to look into the soul, as it were, of his book, after he has got possession of the body. When he is not of the omnivorous kind, but one who desires to possess a particular book, and, having got it, dips into the contents before committing it to permanent obscurity on his loaded shelves, there is, as we have already seen, a certain thread of intelligent association linking the items of his library to each other. The collector knows what he wants, and why he wants it, and that why does not entirely depend on exteriors, though he may have his whim as to that also.

He is a totally different being from the animal who goes to all sales, and buys every book that is cheap. That is a painfully low and grovelling type of the malady; and, fortunately for the honour of literature, the bargain-hunter who suffers under it is not in general a special votary of books, but buys all bargains that come in his way—clocks, tables, forks, spoons, old uniforms, gas-meters, magic lanterns, galvanic batteries, violins (warranted real Cremonas, from their being smashed to pieces), classical busts (with the same testimony to their genuineness), patent coffee-pots, crucibles, amputating knives, wheel-barrows, retorts, cork-screws, boot-jacks, smoke-jacks, melon-frames, bath-chairs, and hurdy-gurdies. It has been said that once, a coffin, made too short for its tenant, being to be had an undoubted bargain, was bought by him, in the hope that, some day or other, it might prove of service in his family. His library, if such it may be termed, is very rich in old trade-directories, justices of peace and registers of voters, road-books, and other useful manuals; but there are very learned books in it too. That clean folio Herodotus was certainly extremely cheap at half-a-crown; and you need not inform him that the ninth book is wanting, for he will never find that out. The day when he has discovered that any book has been bought by another person, a better bargain than his own copy, is a black one in his calendar; but he has a peculiar device for getting over the calamity by bringing down the average cost of his own copy through fresh investments. Having had the misfortune to buy a copy of Goldsmith's History of England for five shillings, while a neighbour flaunts daily in his face a copy obtained for three, he has been busily occupied in a search for copies still cheaper. He has now brought down the average price of his numerous copies of this more agreeable than accurate work to three shillings and twopence, and hopes in another year to get below the three shillings.

Neither is the rich man who purchases fine and dear books by deputy to be admitted within the category of the genuine book-hunter. He must hunt himself—must actually undergo the anxiety, the fatigue, and, so far as purse is concerned, the risks of the chase. Your rich man, known to the trade as a great orderer of books, is like the owner of the great game-preserve, where the sport is heavy butchery; there is none of the real zest of the hunter of the wilderness to be had within his gates. The old Duke of Roxburghe wisely sank his rank and his wealth, and wandered industriously and zealously from shop to stall over the world, just as he wandered over the moor, stalking the deer. One element in the excitement of the poorer book-hunter he must have lacked—the feeling of committing something of extravagance—the consciousness of parting with that which will be missed. This is the sacrifice which assures the world, and satisfies the man's own heart, that he is zealous and earnest in the work he has set about. And it is decidedly this class who most read and use the books they possess. How genial a picture does Scott give of himself at the time of the Roxburghe sale—the creation of Abbotsford pulling him one way, on the other his desire to accumulate a library round him in his Tusculum. Writing to his familiar Terry, he says, "The worst of all is, that while my trees grow and my fountain fills, my purse, in an inverse ratio, sinks to zero. This last circumstance will, I fear, make me a very poor guest at the literary entertainment your researches hold out for me. I should, however, like much to have the treatise on Dreams by the author of the New Jerusalem, which, as John Cuthbertson, the smith, said of the minister's sermon, 'must be neat wark.' The loyal poems by N.T. are probably by poor Nahum Tate, who was associated with Brady in versifying the Psalms, and more honourably with Dryden in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. I never saw them, however, but would give a guinea or thirty shillings for the collection."

One of the reasons why Dibdin's expatiations among rare and valuable volumes are, after all, so devoid of interest, is, that he occupied himself in a great measure in catering for men with measureless purses. Hence there is throughout too exact an estimate of everything by what it is worth in sterling cash, with a contempt for small things, which has an unpleasant odour of plush and shoulder-knot about it. Compared with dear old Monkbarns and his prowlings among the stalls, the narratives of the Boccaccio of the book-trade are like the account of a journey that might be written from the rumble of the travelling chariot, when compared with the adventurous narrative of the pedestrian or of the wanderer in the far East. Everything is too comfortable, luxurious, and easy—russia, morocco, embossing, marbling, gilding—all crowding on one another, till one feels suffocated with riches. There is a feeling, at the same time, of the utter useless pomp of the whole thing. Volumes, in the condition in which he generally describes them, are no more fitted for use and consultation than white kid gloves and silk stockings are for hard work. Books should be used decently and respectfully—reverently, if you will; but let there be no toleration for the doctrine that there are volumes too splendid for use, too fine almost to be looked at, as Brummel said of some of his Dresden china. That there should be little interest in the record of rich men buying costly books which they know nothing about and never become acquainted with, is an illustration of a wholesome truth, pervading all human endeavours after happiness. It is this, that the active, racy enjoyments of life—those enjoyments in which there is also exertion and achievement, and which depend on these for their proper relish—are not to be bought for hard cash. To have been to him the true elements of enjoyment, the book-hunter's treasures must not be his mere property, they must be his achievements—each one of them recalling the excitement of the chase and the happiness of success. Like Monkbarns with his Elzevirs and his bundle of pedlar's ballads, he must have, in common with all hunters, a touch of the competitive in his nature, and be able to take the measure of a rival,—as Monkbarns magnanimously takes that of Davie Wilson, "'commonly called Snuffy Davie, from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, who was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a bull-dog. He would detect you an old blackletter ballad among the leaves of a law-paper, and find an editio princeps under the mask of a school Corderius.'"

In pursuing the chase in this spirit, the sportsman is by no means precluded from indulgence in the adventitious specialties that delight the commonest bibliomaniac. There is a good deal more in many of them than the first thought discloses. An editio princeps is not a mere toy—it has something in it that may purchase the attention even of a thinking man. In the first place, it is a very old commodity—about four hundred years of age. If you look around you in the world you will see very few movables coeval with it. No doubt there are wonderfully ancient things shown to travellers,—as in Glammis Castle you may see the identical four-posted bedstead—a very creditable piece of cabinet-makery—in which King Malcolm was murdered a thousand years ago. But genuine articles of furniture so old as the editio princeps are very rare. If we should highly esteem a poker, a stool, a drinking-can, of that age, is there not something worthy of observance, as indicating the social condition of the age, in those venerable pages, made to look as like the handwriting of their day as possible, with their decorated capitals, all squeezed between two solid planks of oak, covered with richly embossed hog-skin, which can be clasped together by means of massive decorated clasps? And shall we not admit it to a higher place in our reverence than some mere item of household furnishing, when we reflect that it is the very form in which some great ruling intellect, resuscitated from long interment, burst upon the dazzled eyes of Europe and displayed the fulness of its face?



His Achievements in the Creation of Libraries.

So much, then, for the benefit which the class to whom these pages are devoted derive to themselves from their peculiar pursuit. Let us now turn to the far more remarkable phenomena, in which these separate and perhaps selfish pursuers of their own instincts and objects are found to concur in bringing out a great influence upon the intellectual destinies of mankind. It is said of Brindley, the great canal engineer, that,—when a member of a committee, where he was under examination, a little provoked or amused by his entire devotion to canals, asked him if he thought there was any use of rivers,—he promptly answered, "Yes, to feed navigable canals." So, if there be no other respectable function in life fulfilled by the book-hunter, I would stand up for the proposition that he is the feeder, provided by nature, for the preservation of literature from age to age, by the accumulation and preservation of libraries, public or private. It will require perhaps a little circumlocutory exposition to show this, but here it is.

A great library cannot be constructed—it is the growth of ages. You may buy books at any time with money, but you cannot make a library like one that has been a century or two a-growing, though you had the whole national debt to do it with. I remember once how an extensive publisher, speaking of the rapid strides which literature had made of late years, and referring to a certain old public library, celebrated for its affluence in the fathers, the civilians, and the medieval chroniclers, stated how he had himself freighted for exportation, within the past month, as many books as that whole library consisted of. This was likely enough to be true, but the two collections were very different from each other. The cargoes of books were probably thousands of copies of some few popular selling works. They might be a powerful illustration of the diffusion of knowledge, but what they were compared with was its concentration. Had all the paper of which these cargoes consisted been bank-notes, they would not have enabled their owner to create a duplicate of the old library, rich in the fathers, the civilians, and the medieval chroniclers.

This impossibility of improvising libraries is really an important and curious thing; and since it is apt to be overlooked, owing to the facility of buying books, in quantities generally far beyond the available means of any ordinary buyer, it seems worthy of some special consideration. A man who sets to to form a library will go on swimmingly for a short way. He will easily get Tennyson's Poems—Macaulay's and Alison's Histories—the Encyclopaedia Britannica—Buckle on Civilisation—all the books "in print," as it is termed. Nay, he will find no difficulty in procuring copies of others which may not happen to be on the shelves of the publisher or of the retailer of new books. Of Voltaire's works—a little library in itself—he will get a copy at his call in London, if he has not set his mind on some special edition. So of Scott's edition of Swift or Dryden, Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson, and the like. One can scarcely suppose a juncture in which any of these cannot be found through the electric chain of communication established by the book-trade. Of Gibbon's and Hume's Histories—Jeremy Taylor's works—Bossuet's Universal History, and the like, copies abound everywhere. Go back a little, and ask for Kennet's Collection of the Historians—Echard's History, Bayle, Moreri, or Father Daniel's History of France, you cannot be so certain of immediately obtaining your object, but you will get the book in the end—no doubt about that.

Everything has its caprices, and there are some books which might be expected to be equally shy, but in reality, by some inexplicable fatality, are as plentiful as blackberries. Such, for instance, are Famianus Strada's History of the Dutch War of Independence—one of the most brilliant works ever written, and in the very best Latin after Buchanan's. There is Buchanan's own history, very common even in the shape of the early Scotch edition of 1582, which is a highly favourable specimen of Arbuthnot's printing. Then there are Barclay's Argenis, and Raynal's Philosophical History of the East and West Indies, without which no book-stall is to be considered complete, and which seem to be possessed of a supernatural power of resistance to the elements, since, month after month, in fair weather or foul, they are to be seen at their posts dry or dripping.

So the collector goes on, till he perhaps collects some five thousand volumes or so of select works. If he is miscellaneous in his taste, he may get on pretty comfortably to ten or fifteen thousand, and then his troubles will arise. He has easily got Baker's and Froissart's and Monstrelet's Chronicles, because there are modern reprints of them in the market. But if he want Cooper's Chronicle, he may have to wait for it, since its latest form is still the black-letter. True, I did pick up a copy lately, at Braidwood's, for half-a-guinea, but that was a catch—it might have caused the search of a lifetime. Still more hopeless it is when the collector's ambition extends to The Ladder of Perfection of Wynkin de Worde, or to his King Rycharde Cure de Lion, whereof it is reported in the Repertorium Bibliographicum, that "an imperfect copy, wanting one leaf, was sold by auction at Mr Evans's, in June 1817, to Mr Watson Taylor for L40, 19s." "Woe betide," says Dibdin, "the young bibliomaniac who sets his heart upon Breton's Flourish upon Fancie and Pleasant Toyes of an Idle Head, 1557, 4to; or Workes of a Young Wyt trussed up with a Fardell of Pretty Fancies!! Threescore guineas shall hardly fetch these black-letter rarities from the pigeon-holes of Mr Thorpe. I lack courage to add the prices for which these copies sold." But he has some comfort reserved for the hungry collector, in the intimation that The Ravisht Soul and the Blessed Weaper, by the same author, may be had for L15.[51] It creates a thrilling interest to know, through the same distinguished authority, that the Heber sale must have again let loose upon the world "A merry gest and a true, howe John Flynter made his Testament," concerning which we are told, with appropriate solemnity and pathos, that "Julian Notary is the printer of this inestimably precious volume, and Mr Heber is the thrice-blessed owner of the copy described in the Typographical Antiquities."

[Footnote 51: Library Companion, p. 699.]

Such works as the Knightly Tale of Galogras, The Temple of Glas, Lodge's Nettle for Nice Noses, or the Book of Fayts of Armes, by Christene of Pisa, or Caxton's Pylgremage of the Sowle, or his Myrrour of the Worlde, will be long inquired after before they come to the market, thoroughly contradicting that fundamental principle of political economy, that the supply is always equal to the demand.

He, indeed, who sets his mind on the possession of any one of these rarities, may go to his grave a disappointed man. It will be in general the consolation of the collector, however, that he is by no means the "homo unius libri." There is always something or other turning up for him, so long as he keeps within moderate bounds. If he be rich and ravenous, however, there is nothing for it but duplicating—the most virulent form of book-mania. We have seen that Heber, whose collection, made during his own lifetime, was on the scale of those public libraries which take generations to grow, had, with all his wealth, his liberality, and his persevering energy, to invest himself with duplicates, triplicates—often many copies of the same book.

It is rare that the private collector runs himself absolutely into this quagmire, and has so far exhausted the market that no already unpossessed volume turns up in any part of the world to court his eager embraces. The limitation constitutes, however, a serious difficulty in the way of rapidly creating great public libraries. We would obtain the best testimony to this difficulty in America, were our brethren there in a condition to speak or think of so peaceful a pursuit as library-making. In the normal condition of society there—something like that of Holland in the seventeenth century—there are powerful elements for the promotion of art and letters, when wealth gives the means and civilisation the desire to promote them. The very absence of feudal institutions—the inability to found a baronial house—turns the thoughts of the rich and liberal to other foundations calculated to transmit their name and influence to posterity. And so we have such bequests as John Jacob Astor's, who left four hundred thousand dollars for a library, and the hundred and eighty thousand which were the nucleus of the Smithsonian Institution. Yes! Their efforts in this direction have fully earned for them their own peculiar form of laudation as "actually equal to cash." Hence, as the book-trade and book-buyers know very well, the "almighty dollar" has been hard at work, trying to rear up by its sheer force duplicates of the old European libraries, containing not only all the ordinary stock books in the market, but also the rarities, and those individualities—solitary remaining copies of impressions—which the initiated call uniques. It is clear, however, that when there is but one copy, it can only be in one place; and if it have been rooted for centuries in the Bodleian, or the University of Tubingen, it is not to be had for Harvard or the Astorian. Dr Cogswell, the first librarian of the Astorian, spent some time in Europe with his princely endowment in his pocket, and showed himself a judicious, active, and formidable sportsman in the book-hunting world. Whenever, from private collections, or the breaking-up of public institutions, rarities got abroad into the open market, the collectors of the old country found that they had a resolute competitor to deal with—almost, it might be said, a desperate one—since he was in a manner the representative of a nation using powerful efforts to get possession of a share of the literary treasures of the Old World.

In the case of a book, for instance, of which half-a-dozen copies might be known to exist, the combatants before the auctioneer would be, on the one side, many an ambitious collector desiring to belong to the fortunate circle already in possession of such a treasure; but on the other side was one on whose exertions depended the question, whether the book should henceforth be part of the intellectual wealth of a great empire, and should be accessible for consultation by American scholars and authors without their requiring to cross the Atlantic. Let us see how far, by a brief comparison, money has enabled them to triumph over the difficulties of their position.

It is difficult to know exactly the numerical contents of a library, as some people count by volumes, and others by the separate works, small or great; and even if all should consent to count by volumes, the estimate would not be precise, for in some libraries bundles of tracts and other small works are massed in plethoric volumes for economy, while in affluent institutions every collection of leaves put under the command of a separate title-page is separately bound in cloth, calf, or morocco, according to its rank. The Imperial Library at Paris is computed to contain above eight hundred thousand volumes; the Astorian boasts of approaching a hundred thousand: the next libraries in size in America are the Harvard, with from eighty thousand to ninety thousand; the Library of Congress, which has from sixty thousand to seventy thousand; and the Boston Athenaeum, which has about sixty thousand.

There are many of smaller size. In fact, there is probably no country so well stocked as the States with libraries of from ten thousand to twenty thousand volumes,—the evidence that they have bought what was to be bought, and have done all that a new people can to participate in the long-hoarded treasures of literature which it is the privilege of the Old World to possess. I know that, especially in the instance of the Astorian Library, the selections of books have been made with great judgment, and that, after the boundaries of the common crowded market were passed, and individual rarities had to be stalked in distant hunting-grounds, innate literary value was still held an object more important than mere abstract rarity, and, as the more worthy quality of the two, that on which the buying power available to the emissary was brought to bear.

The zeal and wealth which the citizens of the States have thrown into the limited field from which a library can be rapidly reaped, are manifested in the size and value of their private collections. A volume, called The Private Libraries of New York, by James Wynne, M.D., affords interesting evidence of this phenomenon. It is printed on large thick paper, after the most luxurious fashion of our book clubs, apparently for private distribution. The author states, however, that "the greater part of the sketches of private libraries to be found in this volume, were prepared for and published in the Evening Post about two years since. Their origin is due to a request on the part of Mr Bigelow, one of the editors of the Post, to the writer, to examine and sketch the more prominent private collections of books in New York."

Such an undertaking reveals, to us of the old country, a very singular social condition. With us, the class who may be thus offered up to the martyrdom of publicity is limited. The owners of great houses and great collections are doomed to share them with the public, and if they would frequent their own establishments, must be content to do so in the capacity of librarians or showmen, for the benefit of their numerous and uninvited visitors. They generally, with wise resignation, bow to the sacrifice, and, abandoning all connection with their treasures, dedicate them to the people—nor, as their affluence is generally sufficient to surround them with an abundance of other enjoyments, are they an object of much pity.

But that the privacy of our ordinary wealthy and middle classes should be invaded in a similar shape, is an idea that could not get abroad without creating sensations of the most lively horror. They manage these things differently across the Atlantic, and so here we have "over" fifty gentlemen's private collections ransacked and anatomised. If they like it, we have no reason to complain, but rather have occasion to rejoice in the valuable and interesting result.

It is quite natural that their ways of esteeming a collection should not be as our ways. There is a story of a Cockney auctioneer, who had a location in the back settlements to dispose of, advertising that it was "almost entirely covered with fine old timber." To many there would appear to be an equal degree of verdant simplicity in mentioning among the specialties and distinguishing features of a collection—the Biographia and Encyclopaedia Britannica, Lowndes's Manual, the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews, Boyle, Ducange, Moreri, Dodsley's Annual Register, Watt's Bibliotheca, and Diodorus Siculus.

The statement that there is in Dr Francis's collection a "complete set of the Recueil des Causes Celebres, collected by Maurice Mejan, in eighteen volumes—a scarce and valuable work"—would throw any of our black-letter knight-errants into convulsions of laughter. There are also some instances of perhaps not unnatural confusion between one merely local British celebrity and another, as where it is set forth that in Mr Noyes's collection "there is a fine copy of Sir Robert Walpole's works, in five large quarto volumes, embellished with plates." But under all this inexperience of the ways of the craft as it is cultivated among us, and unconsciousness of such small parochial distinctions as may hold between Sir Robert Walpole, our Prime Minister, and Horace Walpole, the man of letters and trinkets, the book contains a quantity of valuable and substantial matter, both as a record of rich stores of learning heaped up for the use of the scholar, and marvellous varieties to dazzle the eyes of the mere Dibdinite. The prevailing feature throughout is the lavish costliness and luxury of these collections, several of which exceed ten thousand volumes. Where collections have grown so large that, on the principles already explained, their increase is impeded, the owner's zeal and wealth seem to have developed themselves in the lavish enshrining and decorating of such things as were attainable.[52]

[Footnote 52: Take as a practical commentary on what has been said (p. 82) on "illustrating" books, the following passage describing some of the specialties of a collection, the general features of which are described further on:—

"But the crowning glory is a folio copy of Shakespeare, illustrated by the collector himself, with a prodigality of labour and expense, that places it far above any similar work ever attempted. The letterpress of this great work is a choice specimen of Nichol's types, and each play occupies a separate portfolio. These are accompanied by costly engravings of landscapes, rare portraits, maps, elegantly coloured plates of costumes, and water-colour drawings, executed by some of the best artists of the day. Some of the plays have over 200 folio illustrations, each of which is beautifully inlaid or mounted, and many of the engravings are very valuable. Some of the landscapes, selected from the oldest cosmographies known, illustrating the various places mentioned in the pages of Shakespeare, are exceedingly curious as well as valuable.

"In the historical plays, when possible, every character is portrayed from authoritative sources, as old tapestries, monumental brasses, or illuminated works of the age, in well-executed drawings or recognised engravings. There are in this work a vast number of illustrations, in addition to a very numerous collection of water-colour drawings. In addition to the thirty-seven plays, are two volumes devoted to Shakespeare's life and times, one volume of portraits, one volume devoted to distinguished Shakespearians, one to poems, and two to disputed plays, the whole embracing a series of forty-two folio volumes, and forming, perhaps, the most remarkable and costly monument, in this shape, ever attempted by a devout worshipper of the Bard of Avon. The volume devoted to Shakespeare's portraits was purchased by Mr Burton, at the sale of a gentleman's library, who had spent many years in making the collection, and includes various 'effigies' unknown to many laborious collectors. It contains upwards of 100 plates, for the most part proofs. The value of this collection may be estimated by the fact, that a celebrated English collector recently offered its possessor L60 for this single volume.

"In the reading-room directly beneath the main library, are a number of portfolios of prints illustrative of the plays of Shakespeare, of a size too large to be included in the illustrated collection just noticed. There is likewise another copy of Shakespeare, based upon Knight's pictorial royal octavo, copiously illustrated by the owner; but although the prints are numerous, they are neither as costly nor as rare as those contained in the large folio copy.

"Among the curiosities of the Shakespeare collection are a number of copies of the disputed plays, printed during his lifetime, with the name of Shakespeare as their author. It is remarkable, if these plays were not at least revised by Shakespeare, that no record of a contradiction of their authorship should be found. It is not improbable that many plays written by others were given to Shakespeare to perform in his capacity as a theatrical manager, requiring certain alterations in order to adapt them to the use of the stage, which were arranged by his cunning and skilful hand, and these plays afterward found their way into print, with just sufficient of his emendations to allow his authorship of them, in the carelessness in which he held his literary fame, to pass uncontradicted by him.

"There is a copy of an old play of the period, with manuscript annotations, and the name of Shakespeare written on the title-page. It is either the veritable signature of the poet, or an admirably imitated forgery. Mr Burton inclined to the opinion that the work once belonged to Shakespeare, and that the signature is genuine. If so, it is probably the only scrap of his handwriting on this continent. This work is not included in the list given of Ireland's library, the contents of which were brought into disrepute by the remarkable literary forgeries of the son, but stands forth peculiar and unique, and furnishes much room for curious speculation."—(148-51.)]

The descriptions of a remorseless investigator like this have a fresh individuality not to be found here, where our habitual reserve prevents us from offering or enjoying a full, true, and particular account of the goods of our neighbours, unless they are brought to the hammer,—and then they have lost half the charm which they possessed as the household gods of some one conspicuous by position or character, and are little more estimable than other common merchandise. It would be difficult to find, among the countless books about books produced by us in the old country, any in which the bent of individual tastes and propensities is so distinctly represented in tangible symbols; and the reality of the elucidation is increased by the sort of innocent surprise with which the historian approaches each "lot," evidently as a first acquaintance, about whom he inquires and obtains all available particulars, good-humouredly communicating them in bald detail to his reader. Here follows a sketch—and surely a tempting one—of a New York interior:—

"Mr Burton's library contains nearly sixteen thousand volumes. Its proprietor had constructed for its accommodation and preservation a three-storey fire-proof building, about thirty feet square, which is isolated from all other buildings, and is connected with his residence in Hudson Street by a conservatory gallery. The chief library-room occupies the upper floor of this building, and is about twenty-five feet in height. Its ceiling presents a series of groined rafters, after the old English style, in the centre of which rises a dome-skylight of stained glass. The sides of the library are fitted up with thirty-six oak book-cases of a Gothic pattern, which entirely surround it, and are nine feet in height. The space between the ceiling and the book-cases is filled with paintings, for the most part of large size, and said to be of value. Specimens of armour and busts of distinguished authors decorate appropriate compartments, and in a prominent niche, at the head of the apartment, stands a full-length statue of Shakespeare, executed by Thom, in the same style as the Tam o' Shanter and Old Mortality groups of this Scotch sculptor.

"The great specialty of the library is its Shakespeare collection; but, although very extensive and valuable, it by no means engrosses the entire library, which contains a large number of valuable works in several departments of literature.

"The number of lexicons and dictionaries is large, and among the latter may be found all the rare old English works so valuable for reference. Three book-cases are devoted to serials, which contain many of the standard reviews and magazines. One case is appropriated to voyages and travels, in which are found many valuable ones. In another are upwards of one hundred volumes of table-talk, and numerous works on the fine arts and bibliography. One book-case is devoted to choice works on America, among which is Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia Totius Orbis Regionum, published in folio at Basle in 1537, which contains full notes of Columbus, Vespucci, and other early voyagers. Another department contains a curious catalogue of authorities relating to Crime and Punishment; a liberal space is devoted to Facetiae, another to American Poetry, and also one to Natural and Moral Philosophy. The standard works of Fiction, Biography, Theology, and the Drama, are all represented.

"There is a fair collection of classical authors, many of which are of Aldine and Elzevir editions. Among the rarities in this department is a folio copy of Plautus, printed at Venice in 1518, and illustrated with woodcuts."

The author thus coming upon a Roman writer of plays, named Plautus, favours us with an account of him, which it is unnecessary to pursue, since it by no means possesses the interest attached to his still-life sketches. Let us pass on and take a peep at the collection of Chancellor Kent, known in this country as the author of Kent's Commentary:—

"To a lawyer, the Chancellor's written remarks on his books are, perhaps, their most interesting feature. He studied pen in hand, and all of his books contain his annotations, and some are literary curiosities. His edition of Blackstone's Commentaries is the first American edition, printed in Philadelphia in 1771. It is creditable to the press of that time, and is overlaid with annotations, showing how diligently the future American commentator studied the elegant work of his English predecessor. The general reader will find still more interest in the earlier judicial reports of the State of New York, printed while he was on the bench. He will find not merely legal notes, but biographical memoranda of many of the distinguished judges and lawyers who lived at the commencement of the century, and built up the present system of laws.

"In proceeding from the legal to the miscellaneous part of the library, the visitor's attention will, perhaps, be attracted by an extensive and curious collection of the records of criminal law. Not merely the English state trials and the French causes celebres are there, but the criminal trials of Scotland and of America, and detached publications of remarkable cases, Newgate Calendars, Malefactors' Register, Chronicles of Crime, with ghastly prints of Newgate and Old Bailey, with their executions. The Chancellor is not responsible for this part of the library, which owes its completeness to the morbid taste of his successor, who defends the collection as best illustrating the popular morals and manners of every period, and contends that fiction yields in interest to the gloomy dramas of real life."

The practice attributed to the Chancellor of annotating his books is looked on by collectors as in the general case a crime which should be denied benefit of clergy. What is often said, however, of other crimes may be said of this, that if the perpetrator be sufficiently illustrious, it becomes a virtue. If Milton, for instance, had thought fit to leave his autograph annotations on the first folio Shakespeare, the offence would not only have been pardoned but applauded, greatly to the pecuniary benefit of any one so fortunate as to discover the treasure. But it would be highly dangerous for ordinary people to found on such an immunity. I remember being once shown by an indignant collector a set of utterly and hopelessly destroyed copies of rare tracts connected with the religious disputes of Queen Elizabeth's day, each inlaid and separately bound in a thin volume in the finest morocco, with the title lengthways along the back. These had been lent to a gentleman who deemed himself a distinguished poet, and he thought proper to write on the margin the sensations caused within him by the perusal of some of the more striking passages, certifying the genuineness of his autograph by his signature at full length in a bold distinct hand. He, worthy man, deemed that he was adding greatly to the value of the rarities; but had he beheld the owner's face on occasion of the discovery, he would have been undeceived.

There are in Dr Wynne's book descriptions, not only of libraries according to their kind, but according to their stage of growth, from those which, as the work of a generation or two, have reached from ten to fifteen thousand, to the collections still in their youth, such as Mr Lorimer Graham's of five thousand volumes, rich in early editions of British poetry, and doubtless, by this time, still richer, since its owner was lately here collecting early works on the literature of Scotland, and other memorials of the land of his fathers. Certainly, however, the most interesting of the whole is the library of the Rev. Dr Magoon, "an eminent and popular divine of the Baptist Church." He entered on active life as an operative bricklayer. There are, it appears, wall-plates extant, and not a few, built by his hands, and it was only by saving the earnings these brought to him that he could obtain an education. When an English mechanic finds out that he has a call to the ministry, we can easily figure the grim ignorant fanatical ranter that comes forth as the result. If haply he is able to read, his library will be a few lean sheepskin-clad volumes, such as Boston's Crook in the Lot, Fisher's Marrow of Modern Divinity, Brooks's Apples of Gold, Bolton's Saint's Enriching Examination, and Halyburton's Great Concern. The bricklayer, however, was endowed with the heavenly gift of the high aesthetic, which no birth or breeding can secure, and threw himself into that common ground where art and religion meet—the literature of Christian medieval art. Things must, however, have greatly changed among our brethren since the days of Cotton Mather, or even of Jonathan Edwards, when a person in Dr Magoon's position could embellish his private sanctuary in this fashion.

"The chief characteristic of the collection is its numerous works on the history, literature, and theory of art in general, and of Christian architecture in particular. There is scarcely a church, abbey, monastery, college, or cathedral; or picture, statue, or illumination, prominent in Christian art, extant in Italy, Germany, France, or the British Islands, that is not represented either by original drawings or in some other graphic form.

"In addition to these works, having especial reference to Christian art, are many full sets of folios depicting the leading galleries of ancient, medieval, and modern art in general. Some of these, as the six elephant folios on the Louvre, are in superb bindings; while many others, among which are the Dresden Gallery and Retzsch's Outlines, derive an additional value from once having formed a part of the elegant collection of William Reginald Courtenay.

"But what renders this collection particularly valuable, is its large number of original drawings by eminent masters which accompany the written and engraved works. Amongst these are two large sepia drawings, by Amici, of the Pantheon and St Peter's at Rome. These drawings were engraved and published with several others by Ackermann. Both the originals, and the engravings executed from them, are in the collection. The original view near the Basilica of St Marco, by Samuel Prout, the engraving of which is in Finden's Byron, and the interior of St Marco, by Luke Price, the engraving of which is in Price's Venice Illustrated, grace the collection. There is likewise a superb general view of Venice, by Wyld; a fine exterior view of Rheims Cathedral, by Buckley; an exterior view of St Peter's at Caen, by Charles Vacher; and the interior of St Germain des Pres at Paris, by Duval."

The early history of the American settlements is naturally the object around which many of these collections cluster; but the scraps of this kind of literature which have been secured have a sadly impoverished aspect in comparison with the luxurious stores which American money has attracted from the Old World.[53] Here one is forcibly reminded of those elements in the old-established libraries of Europe which no wealth or zeal can achieve elsewhere, because the commodity is not in the market.

[Footnote 53: "This collection [Mr Menzies's] contains four thousand volumes, and is for the most part in the English language. Its chief specialty consists in works on American history and early American printed books. Among the latter may be mentioned a series of the earliest works issued from the press in New York. Of these, is A Letter of Advice to a Young Gentleman, by R.L., printed and sold by William Bradford, in New York, 1696. Richard Lyon, the author, came early to this country, and officiated as a private tutor to a young English student at Cambridge, to whom the letter of advice was written. It is undoubtedly the earliest work which issued from the press in New York, and is so extremely rare, that it is questionable whether another copy is to be found in the State. There is a collection of tracts comprised in seven volumes, written by the Rev. George Keith, and published by Bradford, at New York, 1702-4. Keith was born in Scotland, and settled in East Jersey, in the capacity of surveyor-general, in 1682. The several tracts in the collection are on religious subjects, and are controversial in their character. As early specimens of printing, and as models of the manner in which the religious controversies of the day were conducted, they are both instructive and curious. In addition to these is a work entitled The Rebuker Rebuked, by Daniel Leeds, 1703; A Sermon preached at Kingston in Jamaica, by William Corbin, 1703; The Great Mystery of Foxcraft, by Daniel Leeds, 1705; A Sermon preached at Trinity Church, in New York, by John Sharp, 1706; An Alarm Sounded to the Inhabitants of the World, by Bath Bowers, 1709; and Lex Parliamentaria, 1716. All the above works were printed by Bradford, the earliest New York publisher, and one of the earliest printers in America. They constitute, perhaps, the most complete collection in existence of the publications of this early typographer. The whole are in an excellent state of preservation, and are nearly, if not quite, unique."]

America had just one small old library, and the lamentation over the loss of this ewe-lamb is touching evidence of her poverty in such possessions. The Harvard Library dates from the year 1638. In 1764 the college buildings were burned, and though books are not easily consumed, yet the small collection of five thousand volumes was overwhelmed in the general ruin. So were destroyed many books from the early presses of the mother country, and many of the firstlings of the transatlantic printers; and though its bulk was but that of an ordinary country squire's collection, the loss has been always considered national and irreparable.

It is, after all, a rather serious consideration—which it never seems as yet to have occurred to any one to revolve—how entirely the new states of the West and the South seem to be cut off from the literary resources which the Old World possesses in her old libraries. Whatever light lies hidden beneath the bushel in these venerable institutions, seems for ever denied to the students and inquirers of the new empire rising in the antipodes, and consequently to the minds of the people at large who receive impressions from students and inquirers. Books can be reprinted, it is true; but where is the likelihood that seven hundred thousand old volumes will be reprinted to put the Astorian Library on a par with the Imperial? Well, perhaps some quick and cheap way will be found of righting it all when the Aerial Navigation Company issues its time-bills, and news come of battles "from the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue."

In the meantime, what a lesson do these matters impress on us of the importance of preserving old books! Government and legislation have done little, if anything, in Britain, towards this object, beyond the separate help that may have been extended to individual public libraries, and the Copyright Act deposits. Of general measures, it is possible to point out some which have been injurious, by leading to the dispersal or destruction of books. The house and window duties have done this to a large extent. As this statement may not be quite self-evident, a word in explanation may be appropriate. The practice of the department having charge of the Assessed Taxes has been, when any furniture was left in an unoccupied house, to levy the duty—to exempt only houses entirely empty. It was a consequence of this that when, by minority, family decay, or otherwise, a mansion-house had to be shut up, there was an inducement entirely to gut it of its contents, including the library. The same cause, by the way, has been more destructive still to furniture, and may be said to have lost to our posterity the fashions of a generation or two. Tables, chairs, and cabinets first grow unfashionable, and then old; in neither stage have they any friends who will comfort or support them—they are still worse off than books. But then comes an after-stage, in which they revive as antiquities, and become exceeding precious. As Pompeiis, however, are rare in the world, the chief repositories of antique furniture have been mansions shut up for a generation or two, which, after more fashions than generations have passed away, are reopened to the light of day, either in consequence of the revival of the fortunes of their old possessors, or of their total extinction and the entry of new owners. How the house and window duties disturbed this silent process by which antiques were created is easily perceived.

One service our Legislature has done for the preservation of books in the copies which require to be deposited under the Copyright Act at Stationers' Hall for the privileged libraries. True, this has been effected somewhat in the shape of a burden upon authors, for the benefit of that posterity which has done no more for them specially than it has for other people of the present generation. But in its present modified shape the burden should not be grudged, in consideration of the magnitude of the benefit to the people of the future—a benefit the full significance of which it probably requires a little consideration to estimate. The right of receiving a copy of every book from Stationers' Hall has generally been looked on as a benefit to the library receiving it. The benefit, however, was but lightly esteemed by some of these institutions, the directors of which represented that they were thus pretty well supplied with the unsaleable rubbish, while the valuable publications slipped past them; and, on the whole, they would sell their privilege for a very small annual sum, to enable them to go into the market and buy such books, old and new, as they might prefer. The view adopted by the law, however, was, that the depositing of these books created an obligation if it conferred a privilege, the institution receiving them having no right to part with them, but being bound to preserve them as a record of the literature of the age.[54]

[Footnote 54: I am not aware that in the blue-books, or any other source of public information, there is any authenticated statement of the quantity of literature which the privileged libraries receive through the Copyright Act. The information would afford a measure of the fertility of the British press. It is rather curious, that for a morsel of this kind of ordinary modern statistics, one must have recourse to so scholarly a work as the quarto volume of the Praefationes et Epistolae Editionibus Principibus Auctorum Veterum praepositae, curante Beriah Botfield, A.M. The editor of that noble quarto obtained a return from Mr Winter Jones, of the number of deposits in the British Museum from 1814 to 1860. Counting the "pieces," as they are called—that is, every volume, pamphlet, page of music, and other publication—the total number received in 1814 was 378. It increased by steady gradation until 1851, when it reached 9871. It then got an impulse, from a determination more strictly to enforce the Act, and next year the number rose to 13,934, and in 1859 it reached 28,807. In this great mass, the number of books coming forth complete in one volume or more is roundly estimated at 5000, but a quantity of the separate numbers and parts which go to make up the total are elementary portions of books, giving forth a certain number of completed volumes annually. From the same authority, it appears that the total number of publications which issued from the French press in 1858 was estimated at 13,000; but this includes "sermons, pamphlets, plays, pieces of music, and engravings." In the same year the issues from the German press, Austria not included, are estimated at 10,000, all apparently actual volumes, or considerable pamphlets. Austria in 1855 published 4673 volumes and parts. What a contrast to all this it must be to live in sleepy Norway, where the annual literary prowess produces 146 volumes! In Holland the annual publications approach 2000. "During the year 1854, 861 works in the Russian language, and 451 in foreign languages were printed in Russia; besides 2940 scientific and literary treatises in the different periodicals." The number of works anywhere published is, however, no indication of the number of books put in circulation, since some will have to be multiplied by tens, others by hundreds, and others by thousands. We know that there is an immense currency of literature in the American States, yet, of the quantity of literature issued there, the Publishers' Circular for February 1859 gives the following meagre estimate:—"There were 912 works published in America during 1858. Of these 177 were reprints from England, 35 were new editions, and 10 were translations from the French or German. The new American works thus number only 690, and among them are included sermons, pamphlets, and letters, whereas the reprints are in most cases bona fide books."]