The Bibliotaph | Page 7

in a
book, and whose book is at home upon a shelf. It is possible to
sympathize with him when he exclaims, 'I had rather than forty
shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here!' In making love
there are other resources; all wooers are not as ill equipped as Slender
was. But in hunting rare books the time will be sure to come when a
man may well cry, 'I had rather than forty dollars I had my list of first
editions with me!'
The Bibliotaph carried much accurate information in his head, but he
never traveled without a thesaurus in his valise. It was a small volume
containing printed lists of the first editions of rare books. The volume
was interleaved; the leaves were crowded with manuscript notes. An
appendix contained a hundred and more autograph letters from living

authors, correcting, supplementing, or approving the printed
bibliographies. Even these authors' own lists were accurately corrected.
They needed it in not a few instances. For it is a wise author who
knows his own first edition. Men may write remarkable books, and
understand but little the virtues of their books from the collector's point
of view. Men are seldom clever in more ways than one. Z. Jackson was
a practical printer, and his knowledge as a printer enabled him to
correct sundry errors in the first folio of Shakespeare. But Z. Jackson,
as the Rev. George Dawson observes, 'ventured beyond the
composing-case, and, having corrected blunders made by the printers,
corrected excellencies made by the poet.'
It was amusing to discover, by means of these autograph letters, how
seldom a good author was an equally good bibliographer. And this is as
it should be. The author's business is, not to take account of first
editions, but to make books of such virtue that bibliomaniacs shall be
eager to possess the first editions thereof. It is proverbial that a poet is
able to show a farmer things new to him about his own farm. Turn a
bibliographer loose upon a poet's works, and he will amaze the poet
with an account of his own doings. The poet will straightway discover
that while he supposed himself to be making 'mere literature' he was in
reality contributing to an elaborate and exact science.
The Bibliotaph was not a blind enthusiast on the subject of first editions.
He was one of the few men who understood the exceeding great virtues
of second editions. He declared that a man who was so fortunate as to
secure a second edition of Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary was in better
case than he who had bothered himself to obtain a first. When it fell in
with his mood to argue against that which he himself most affected, he
would quote the childish bit of doggerel beginning 'The first the worst,
the second the same,' and then grow eloquent over the dainty
Templeman Hazlitts which are chiefly third editions. He thought it
absurd to worry over a first issue of Carlyle's French Revolution if it
were possible to buy at moderate price a copy of the third edition,
which is a well-nigh perfect book, 'good to the touch and grateful to the
eye.' But this lover of books grew fierce in his special mania if you
hinted that it was also foolish to spend a large sum on an editio

princeps of Paradise Lost or of Robinson Crusoe. There are certain
authors concerning the desirability of whose first editions it must not be
disputed.
The singular readiness with which bookish treasures fell into his way
astonished less fortunate buyers. Rare Stevensons dropped into his
hand like ripe fruit from a tree. The most inaccessible of pamphlets
fawned upon him, begging to be purchased, just as the succulent little
roast pigs in The New Paul and Virginia run about with knives and
forks in their sides pleading to be eaten. The Bibliotaph said he did not
despair of buying Poe's Tamerlane for twenty-five cents one of these
days; and that a rarity he was sure to get sooner or later was a copy of
that English newspaper which announced Shelley's death under the
caption Now he Knows whether there is a Hell or Not.
He unconsciously followed Heber in that he disliked large-paper copies.
Heber would none of them because they took up too much room; their
ample borders encroached upon the rights of other books. Heber
objected to this as Prosper Mérimée objected to the gigantic English
hoopskirts of 1865,--there was space on Regent Street for but one
woman at a time.
Original as the Bibliotaph was in appearance, manners, habits, he was
less striking in what he did than in what he said. It is a pity that no
record of his talk exists. It is not