The Book-Hunter in London | Page 5

murders?' asked the judge.
'Books! yes, books! Books are the glory of God!'
Vincente's counsel, in defence of his client, in this desperate strait
maintained that there might exist several copies of the books found in
his possession, and that it was out of the question to condemn, on his
own sham avowal, a man who appeared to be half cracked. The counsel
for the prosecution said that that plea could not be urged in the case of
the book printed by Lambert Palmart, as but one copy of that was in
existence. But the prisoner's counsel retorted by putting in evidence
attested affirmation that a second copy was in France.
Up to this moment Vincente had maintained an imperturbable calm; but
on hearing his counsel's plea he burst into tears. In the end, Don
Vincente was condemned to be strangled, and when asked if he had
anything more to urge, all he could utter, sobbing violently, was, 'Ah!
your worship, my copy was not unique!'
Cousin Pons and Don Vincente are extreme instances of bibliomaniacs
to whom the possession of a book was the supreme happiness of life.
The man of Fiction and the man of Fact were at one in this passion of
acquisitiveness. Don Vincente was compelled by hunger--mala suada
fames--to become a book seller; and if it became a general rule for
book-collectors to become booksellers there would, we venture to think,
be a very material increase in police-court and, perhaps, criminal cases
generally. Mr. G. A. Sala tells us an amusing story of the late Frederick
Guest Tomlins, a historian and journalist of repute. In the autumn of his
life Tomlins decided to set up as a bookseller. He purposed to deal

chiefly in mediæval literature, in which he was profoundly versed. The
venture was scarcely successful. A customer entered his shop one day
and asked for a particular book, as marked in the catalogue. 'I had
really no idea it was there,' meditatively remarked Mr. Tomlins, as he
ascended a ladder to a very high shelf and pulled out a squabby little
tome. Then he remained about five-and-twenty minutes on the ladder
absorbed in the perusal of the volume, when the customer, growing
impatient, began to rap on the counter with his stick. Thereupon Mr.
Tomlins came down the ladder. 'If you think,' he remarked, with calm
severity, to the intending purchaser, 'that any considerations of vile
dross will induce me to part with this rare and precious little volume,
you are very much mistaken. It is like your impudence. Be off with
you!' A not altogether dissimilar anecdote is related by Lord Lytton in
that curious novel 'Zanoni,' in which one of the characters is an old
bookseller who, after years of toil, succeeded in forming an almost
perfect library of works on occult philosophy. Poor in everything but a
genuine love for the mute companions of his old age, he was compelled
to keep open his shop, and trade, as it were, in his own flesh. Let a
customer enter, and his countenance fell; let him depart empty-handed,
and he would smile gaily, oblivious for a time of bare cupboard and
inward cravings.
À propos of a literary man turning bookseller, the experiment has often
been tried, but it has generally failed. Second-hand bookselling seems
to be a frequent experiment after the failures of other trades and
callings. We have known grocers, greengrocers, coal-dealers,
pianoforte-makers, printers, bookbinders, cheap-jacks, in London,
adopt the selling of books as a means of livelihood. Sometimes--and
several living examples might be cited--the experiment is a success, but
frequently a failure. The knowledge of old books is not picked up in a
month or a year. The misfortune which seems to dog the footsteps of
many men in every move they make, does not fail to pursue them in
bookselling. Some of them might almost say with Fulmer, in
Cumberland's 'West Indian' (1771): 'I have beat through every quarter
of the compass . . . I have blustered for prerogatives, I have bellowed
for freedom, I have offered to serve my country, I have engaged to
betray it . . . I have talked treason, writ treason. . . . And here I set up as

a bookseller, but men leave off reading, and if I were to turn butcher I
believe they'd leave off eating.'
There can be no doubt about the fact that Englishmen as a rule do not
attach sufficient importance to book-buying. If the better-class
tradesman, or professional man, spends a few pounds at Christmas or
on birthday occasions, he feels that he has become a patron of literature.
How many men, who are getting £1,000 a year, spend £1 per month on
books? The library of the average middle-class person is in ninety-nine
cases out