Books and Bookmen | Page 4

able to say, 'I have all the poets whom the Elzevirs printed. I have ten
examples of each of them, all with red letters, and all of the right date.'
This, no doubt, is a craze, for, good as the books are, if he kept them to
read them, one example of each would be enough."
The Parisian. "If he had wanted to read them, I would not have advised
him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minor authors which these
booksellers published, even editions 'of the right date,' as you say, are
not too correct. Nothing is good in the books but the type and the paper.
Your friend would have done better to use the editions of Gryphius or
Estienne."
This fragment of a literary dialogue I translate from 'Entretiens sur les
Contes de Fees,' a book which contains more of old talk about books
and booksellers than about fairies and folk-lore. The 'Entretiens' were
published in 1699, about sixteen years after the Elzevirs ceased to be
publishers. The fragment is valuable: first, because it shows us how
early the taste for collecting Elzevirs was fully developed, and,
secondly, because it contains very sound criticism of the mania.

Already, in the seventeenth century, lovers of the tiny Elzevirian books
waxed pathetic over dates, already they knew that a 'Caesar' of 1635
was the right 'Caesar,' already they were fond of the red-lettered
passages, as in the first edition of the 'Virgil' of 1636. As early as 1699,
too, the Parisian critic knew that the editions were not very correct, and
that the paper, type, ornaments, and FORMAT were their main
attractions. To these we must now add the rarity of really good
Elzevirs.
Though Elzevirs have been more fashionable than at present, they are
still regarded by novelists as the great prize of the book collector. You
read in novels about "priceless little Elzevirs," about books "as rare as
an old Elzevir." I have met, in the works of a lady novelist (but not
elsewhere), with an Elzevir 'Theocritus.' The late Mr. Hepworth Dixon
introduced into one of his romances a romantic Elzevir Greek
Testament, "worth its weight in gold." Casual remarks of this kind
encourage a popular delusion that all Elzevirs are pearls of considerable
price. When a man is first smitten with the pleasant fever of
book-collecting, it is for Elzevirs that he searches. At first he thinks
himself in amazing luck. In Booksellers' Row and in Castle Street he
"picks up," for a shilling or two, Elzevirs, real or supposed. To the
beginner, any book with a sphere on the title-page is an Elzevir. For the
beginner's instruction, two copies of spheres are printed here. The
second is a sphere, an ill-cut, ill-drawn sphere, which is not Elzevirian
at all. The mark was used in the seventeenth century by many other
booksellers and printers. The first, on the other hand, is a true
Elzevirian sphere, from a play of Moliere's, printed in 1675. Observe
the comparatively neat drawing of the first sphere, and be not led away
after spurious imitations.
Beware, too, of the vulgar error of fancying that little duodecimos with
the mark of the fox and the bee's nest, and the motto "Quaerendo,"
come from the press of the Elzevirs. The mark is that of Abraham
Wolfgang, which name is not a pseudonym for Elzevir. There are three
sorts of Elzevir pseudonyms. First, they occasionally reprinted the full
title-page, publisher's name and all, of the book they pirated. Secondly,
when they printed books of a "dangerous" sort, Jansenist pamphlets and
so forth, they used pseudonyms like "Nic. Schouter," on the 'Lettres
Provinciales' of Pascal. Thirdly, there are real pseudonyms employed

by the Elzevirs. John and Daniel, printing at Leyden (1652-1655), used
the false name "Jean Sambix." The Elzevirs of Amsterdam often placed
the name "Jacques le Jeune" on their title-pages. The collector who
remembers these things must also see that his purchases have the right
ornaments at the heads of chapters, the right tail-pieces at the ends.
Two of the most frequently recurring ornaments are the so-called "Tete
de Buffle" and the "Sirene." More or less clumsy copies of these and
the other Elzevirian ornaments are common enough in books of the
period, even among those printed out of the Low Countries; for
example, in books published in Paris.
A brief sketch of the history of the Elzevirs may here be useful. The
founder of the family, a Flemish bookbinder, Louis, left Louvain and
settled in Leyden in 1580. He bought a house opposite the University,
and opened a book-shop. Another shop, on college ground, was opened
in 1587. Louis was a good bookseller, a very ordinary publisher. It was
not till shortly before his death, in 1617, that his grandson Isaac bought
a set