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pubOne.info present you this new edition. 'Midst mingled spoils of peace and war;

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819936046
Langue	English

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TO THE VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY
Madame, it is no modish thing,
The bookman's tribute that I bring;
A talk of antiquaries grey,
Dust unto dust this many a day,
Gossip of texts and bindings old,
Of faded type, and tarnish'd gold!
Can ladies care for this to-do
With Payne, Derome, and Padeloup?
Can they resign the rout, the ball,
For lonely joys of shelf and stall?
The critic thus, serenely wise;
But you can read with other eyes,
Whose books and bindings treasured are
'Midst mingled spoils of peace and war;
Shields from the fights the Mahdi lost,
And trinkets from the Golden Coast,
And many things divinely done
By Chippendale and Sheraton,
And trophies of Egyptian deeds,
And fans, and plates, and Aggrey beads,
Pomander boxes, assegais,
And sword-hilts worn in Marlbro's days.
In this pell-mell of old and new,
Of war and peace, my essays, too,
For long in serials tempest-tost,
Are landed now, and are not lost:
Nay, on your shelf secure they lie,
As in the amber sleeps the fly.
'Tis true, they are not “rich nor rare; ”
Enough, for me, that they are— there!
A. L
PREFACE
The essays in this volume have, for the most part,already appeared in an American edition (Combes, New York, 1886).The Essays on 'Old French Title-Pages' and 'Lady Book-Lovers' takethe place of 'Book Binding' and 'Bookmen at Rome; ' 'Elzevirs' and'Some Japanese Bogie- Books' are reprinted, with permission ofMessrs. Cassell, from the Magazine of Art; 'Curiosities of ParishRegisters' from the Guardian; 'Literary Forgeries' from theContemporary Review; 'Lady Book-Lovers' from the FortnightlyReview; 'A Bookman's Purgatory' and two of the pieces of verse fromLongman's Magazine— with the courteous permission of the variouseditors. All the chapters have been revised, and I have to thankMr. H. Tedder for his kind care in reading the proof sheets, andMr. Charles Elton, M. P. , for a similar service to the Essay on'Parish Registers. '
ELZEVIRS
The Countryman. “You know how much, for some timepast, the editions of the Elzevirs have been in demand. The fancyfor them has even penetrated into the country. I am acquainted witha man there who denies himself necessaries, for the sake ofcollecting into a library (where other books are scarce enough) asmany little Elzevirs as he can lay his hands upon. He is dying ofhunger, and his consolation is to be able to say, 'I have all thepoets whom the Elzevirs printed. I have ten examples of each ofthem, all with red letters, and all of the right date. ' This, nodoubt, is a craze, for, good as the books are, if he kept them toread them, one example of each would be enough. ”
The Parisian. “If he had wanted to read them, Iwould not have advised him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minorauthors which these booksellers published, even editions 'of theright date, ' as you say, are not too correct. Nothing is good inthe books but the type and the paper. Your friend would have donebetter to use the editions of Gryphius or Estienne. ”
This fragment of a literary dialogue I translatefrom 'Entretiens sur les Contes de Fees, ' a book which containsmore of old talk about books and booksellers than about fairies andfolk-lore. The 'Entretiens' were published in 1699, about sixteenyears after the Elzevirs ceased to be publishers. The fragment isvaluable: first, because it shows us how early the taste forcollecting Elzevirs was fully developed, and, secondly, because itcontains very sound criticism of the mania. Already, in theseventeenth century, lovers of the tiny Elzevirian books waxedpathetic over dates, already they knew that a 'Caesar' of 1635 wasthe right 'Caesar, ' already they were fond of the red-letteredpassages, as in the first edition of the 'Virgil' of 1636. As earlyas 1699, too, the Parisian critic knew that the editions were notvery correct, and that the paper, type, ornaments, and FORMAT weretheir main attractions. To these we must now add the rarity ofreally good Elzevirs.
Though Elzevirs have been more fashionable than atpresent, they are still regarded by novelists as the great prize ofthe book collector. You read in novels about “priceless littleElzevirs, ” about books “as rare as an old Elzevir. ” I have met,in the works of a lady novelist (but not elsewhere), with anElzevir 'Theocritus. ' The late Mr. Hepworth Dixon introduced intoone of his romances a romantic Elzevir Greek Testament, “worth itsweight in gold. ” Casual remarks of this kind encourage a populardelusion that all Elzevirs are pearls of considerable price. When aman is first smitten with the pleasant fever of book-collecting, itis for Elzevirs that he searches. At first he thinks himself inamazing luck. In Booksellers' Row and in Castle Street he “picksup, ” for a shilling or two, Elzevirs, real or supposed. To thebeginner, any book with a sphere on the title-page is an Elzevir.For the beginner's instruction, two copies of spheres are printedhere. The second is a sphere, an ill-cut, ill-drawn sphere, whichis not Elzevirian at all. The mark was used in the seventeenthcentury by many other booksellers and printers. The first, on theother hand, is a true Elzevirian sphere, from a play of Moliere's,printed in 1675. Observe the comparatively neat drawing of thefirst sphere, and be not led away after spurious imitations.
Beware, too, of the vulgar error of fancying thatlittle duodecimos with the mark of the fox and the bee's nest, andthe motto “Quaerendo, ” come from the press of the Elzevirs. Themark is that of Abraham Wolfgang, which name is not a pseudonym forElzevir. There are three sorts of Elzevir pseudonyms. First, theyoccasionally reprinted the full title-page, publisher's name andall, of the book they pirated. Secondly, when they printed books ofa “dangerous” sort, Jansenist pamphlets and so forth, they usedpseudonyms like “Nic. Schouter, ” on the 'Lettres Provinciales' ofPascal. Thirdly, there are real pseudonyms employed by theElzevirs. John and Daniel, printing at Leyden (1652-1655), used thefalse name “Jean Sambix. ” The Elzevirs of Amsterdam often placedthe name “Jacques le Jeune” on their title-pages. The collector whoremembers these things must also see that his purchases have theright ornaments at the heads of chapters, the right tail-pieces atthe ends. Two of the most frequently recurring ornaments are theso-called “Tete de Buffle” and the “Sirene. ” More or less clumsycopies of these and the other Elzevirian ornaments are commonenough in books of the period, even among those printed out of theLow Countries; for example, in books published in Paris.
A brief sketch of the history of the Elzevirs mayhere be useful. The founder of the family, a Flemish bookbinder,Louis, left Louvain and settled in Leyden in 1580. He bought ahouse opposite the University, and opened a book-shop. Anothershop, on college ground, was opened in 1587. Louis was a goodbookseller, a very ordinary publisher. It was not till shortlybefore his death, in 1617, that his grandson Isaac bought a set oftypes and other material. Louis left six sons. Two of these,Matthew and Bonaventure, kept on the business, dating ex officinaElzeviriana. In 1625 Bonaventure and Abraham (son of Matthew)became partners. The “good dates” of Elzevirian books begin from1626. The two Elzevirs chose excellent types, and after nine years'endeavours turned out the beautiful 'Caesar' of 1635.
Their classical series in petit format was openedwith 'Horace' and 'Ovid' in 1629. In 1641 they began their elegantpiracies of French plays and poetry with 'Le Cid. ' It was worthwhile being pirated by the Elzevirs, who turned you out like agentleman, with fleurons and red letters, and a prettyfrontispiece. The modern pirate dresses you in rags, prints youmurderously, and binds you, if he binds you at all, in some hideousexample of “cloth extra, ” all gilt, like archaic gingerbread.Bonaventure and Abraham both died in 1652. They did not departbefore publishing (1628), in grand format, a desirable work onfencing, Thibault's 'Academie de l'Espee. ' This Tibbald alsokilled by the book. John and Daniel Elzevir came next. They broughtout the 'Imitation' (Thomae a Kempis canonici regularis ord. S.Augustini De Imitatione Christi, libri iv. ); I wish by takingthought I could add eight millimetres to the stature of my copy. In1655 Daniel joined a cousin, Louis, in Amsterdam, and John stayedin Leyden. John died in 1661; his widow struggled on, but her sonAbraham (1681) let all fall into ruins. Abraham died 1712. TheElzevirs of Amsterdam lasted till 1680, when Daniel died, and thebusiness was wound up. The type, by Christopher Van Dyck, was soldin 1681, by Daniel's widow. Sic transit gloria.
After he has learned all these matters the amateurhas still a great deal to acquire. He may now know a real Elzevirfrom a book which is not an Elzevir at all. But there are enormousdifferences of value, rarity, and excellence among the productionsof the Elzevirian press. The bookstalls teem with small, “cropped,” dingy, dirty, battered Elzevirian editions of the classics, NOT“of the good date. ” On these it is not worth while to expend acouple of shillings, especially as Elzevirian type is too small tobe read with comfort by most modern eyes. No, let the collectorsave his money; avoid littering his shelves with what he will soonfind to be rubbish, and let him wait the chance of acquiring areally beautiful and rare Elzevir.
Meantime, and before we come to describe Elzevirs ofthe first flight, let it be remembered that the “taller” the copy,the less harmed and nipped by the binder's shears, the better. “Menscarcely know how beautiful fire is, ” says Shelley; and we may saythat most men hardly know how beautiful an Elzevir was in its uncutand original form. The Elzevirs we have may be “dear, ” but theyare certainly “dumpy twelves. ” Their fair proportions have beendocked by the binder. At the Beckford sale there was a pearl of abook, a 'Marot; ' not an Elzevir, indee