The Book-Hunter in London | Page 6

of a hundred the cruelest possible commentary on his
intelligence, and, as a matter of fact, if it contains a couple of volumes
worthy of the name of books, their presence is more often than not an
accidental one. A few volumes of the Sunday at Home, the Leisure
Hour, Cassell's Magazine, or perhaps a few other monthly periodicals,
carefully preserved during the twelve months of their issue, and bound
up at the end of the year--with such stuff as this is the average
Englishman's bookcase filled. Mark Pattison has gone so far as to
declare that while the aggregate wealth of the United Kingdom is many
times more than it was one hundred and fifty years ago, the circle of
book-buyers, of the lovers of literature, is certainly not larger, if it be
not absolutely smaller. It may be urged that a person with £1,000 per
annum as income usually spends £100 in rent, and that the
accommodation which can be got for that amount does not permit of
one room being devoted to library purposes. This may be true, but this
explanation is not a valid excuse, for a set of shelves, 13 feet by 10 feet
6 inches, placed against a wall will accommodate nearly one thousand
octavo volumes--the genius of the world can be pressed into a hundred
volumes. An American has advised his readers to 'own all the books
you can, use all the books you own, and as many more as you can get.'
The advice is good, and it is well to remember that by far the majority
of great book-collectors have lived to a ripe old age. The
companionship of books is unquestionably one of the greatest antidotes
to the ravages of time, and study is better than all medical formulas for
the prolongation of life.
The man who has resolved upon getting together a collection of
first-class books may not unreasonably be appalled at the difficulties

which stand in the way. And what, indeed, it may be asked, will
become of the hundreds and thousands of books which are now all the
fashion? How many will survive the levelling process of the next half a
score of years, and how few will be known, except to bibliographers,
half a century hence? The lessons of the past would aid us in arriving at
some sort of conclusion as regards the future, if we were inclined to
indulge in speculation of this vain character. It will, however, be
interesting to point out that of the 1,300 books printed before the
beginning of the sixteenth century, not more than 300 are of any
importance to the book-collector. Of the 50,000 published in the
seventeenth century, not more than perhaps fifty are now held in
estimation; and of the 80,000 published in the eighteenth century not
more than 300 are considered worth reprinting, and not more than 500
are sought after.
In a curious little book, 'L'An 2440, rêvue s'il en fut jamais,' published
in Paris a century ago, there is a very quaint description of the process
by which, in an improved state of society, men would apply themselves
not to multiply books, but to gather knowledge. The sages of the
political millennium exhibited their stores of useful learning in a
cabinet containing a few hundred volumes. All the lumber of letters had
perished, or was preserved only in one or two public libraries for the
gratification of a few harmless dreamers that were tolerated in their
laborious idleness. This pleasant little picture, drawn by M. L. S.
Mercier, of the state of things five centuries hence, is in strong contrast
to the painful plethora of books of the present day. Dr. Ingleby, the
famous Shakespearian scholar, is credited with the idea of establishing
a society for the purpose of procuring books which no one else would
buy; but this society (the 'Syncretic Book-club') could not have had any
success if the vast quantities of unsaleable rubbish which one meets
with on every hand are to be taken into account. Doubtless Dr. Ingleby
would have included in his scope such books as Lord Lonsdale's
'Memoir of the Reign of James II.,' 1803, which fifty years ago sold for
5-1/2 guineas, but which, within the past few months, has declined to
two shillings!
There was a time when even old and unsaleable books had a

commercial value. Before the cheapening of paper, a second-hand
bookseller had always the paper-mill to fall back on, and the price then
paid, £1 10s. per cwt., was one inducement to dispose of folios and
quartos which remained year in and year out without a purchaser. The
present price of waste-paper is half a crown a hundredweight, so that
the bookseller is now practically shut out of this poor market. Indeed,
an