The Book-Hunter in London | Page 4

along,' was clearly a person who wished to be
fashionable. Another characteristically amusing illustration of this type
of book-collector is related by an old-established second-hand
bookseller, who had bought at a country sale some two or three
hundred volumes in a fair condition. But they were principally old
sermons, or, what is worse, theology and political economy. He placed
a sample lot outside his shop, leaving the bulk of the stock untouched.
The little parcel attracted the attention of a stylishly dressed man, who
entered the shop and said, 'I'll take these books, and, say, have you any
more of this kind with this shield onto them?' pointing to the bookplate
attached, which bore the arms and name of a good old county family.
'That box, sir, is full of books from the same house, and probably every
book has the same bookplate, but I have not yet had time to examine
them.' 'What's yer figger for them, any way? See here, I start back to
Chicago to-morrow, and I mean to take these books right back along.
I'm goin' to start a libery thar, and these books will just fit me, name
and all. Just you sort out all that have that shield and name, and send
them round to the Langham at seven sharp. I'll be round to settle up;
but see, now, don't you send any without that name-plate, for that's my
name, too, and I reckon this old hoss with the daggers and roosters
might have been related to me some way.'
'I remember,' says the Marquis d'Argenson, in his 'Mémoires,' 'once
paying a visit to a well-known bibliomaniac, who had just purchased an
extremely scarce volume, quoted at a fabulous price. Having been
graciously permitted by its owner to inspect the treasure, I ventured
innocently to remark that he had probably bought it with the

philanthropic intention of having it reprinted. "Heaven forbid!" he
exclaimed in a horrified tone; "how could you suppose me capable of
such an act of folly! If I were, the book would be no longer scarce, and
would have no value whatever. Besides," he added, "I doubt, between
ourselves, if it be worth reprinting." "In that case," said I, "its rarity
appears to be its only attraction." "Just so," he complacently replied;
"and that is quite enough for me."'
Another type which borders dangerously near to that which we have
been describing is the collector who, not necessarily ignorant, collects
for himself alone. The motto which Grolier adopted and acted upon--'Io
Grolierii et amicorum'--might have been a very safe principle to go
upon in the sixteenth century, but it would most certainly fail in the
nineteenth, when one's dearest friends are the most unmitigated
book-thieves. But perhaps even the too frequent loss of books is an evil
to be preferred to the egoistical meanness of the selfish collector.
Balzac gives in his 'Cousin Pons' a vivid delineation of such a person.
The hero is a poor drudging music-teacher and orchestra-player, who
has invested every franc of his hard-won earnings in the collecting of
exquisite paintings, prints, bric-à-brac, and other rare mementoes of the
eighteenth century. Despised by all, even by his kindred, trodden upon
as a nobody, slow, patient, and ever courageous, he unites to a
complete technical knowledge a marvellous intuition of the beautiful,
and his treasures are for him pride, bliss, and life. There is no show in
this case, no desire for show, no ambition of the despicable
shoddy-genteel sort--a more than powerful creation of fiction. A
strikingly opposite career of selfishness is suggested by the fairly
well-known story of Don Vincente, the friar bookseller of Barcelona,
who, in order to obtain a volume which a rival bookseller, Paxtot, had
secured at an auction, set fire one night to Paxtot's shop, and stole the
precious volume--a supposed unique copy of the 'Furs e ordinacions
fetes per los gloriosos reys de Arago als regnicoes del regne de
Valencia,' printed by Lambert Palmart, 1482. When the friar was
brought up for judgment, he stolidly maintained his innocence,
asserting that Paxtot had sold it to him after the auction. Further inquiry
resulted in the discovery that Don Vincente possessed a number of
books which had been purchased from him by customers who were

shortly afterwards found assassinated. It was only after receiving a
formal promise that his library should not be dispersed, but preserved
in its integrity, that he determined to make a clean breast of it, and
confess the details of the crimes that he had committed. In
cross-examination, Don Vincente spurned the suggestion that he was a
thief, for had he not given back to his victims the money which they
had paid him for the books?
'And it was solely for the sake of books that you committed these