Books and Bookmen [34]
library of George III. cost only seven shillings. This exquisite
Homer, sacred to the memory of learned friendships, the chief
offering of early printing at the altar of ancient poetry, is really
one of the most interesting books in the world. Yet this Homer is
less valued than the tiny octavo which contains the ballades and
huitains of the scamp Francois Villon (1533). 'The History of the
Holy Grail' (L'Hystoire du Sainct Greaal: Paris, 1523), in a
binding stamped with the four crowns of Louis XIV., is valued at
about 500 pounds. A chivalric romance of the old days, which was
treasured even in the time of the grand monarque, when old French
literature was so much despised, is certainly a curiosity. The
Rabelais of Madame de Pompadour (in morocco) seems comparatively
cheap at 60 pounds. There is something piquant in the idea of
inheriting from that famous beauty the work of the colossal genius
of Rabelais. {17}
The natural sympathy of collectors "to middle fortune born" is not
with the rich men whose sport in book-hunting resembles the battue.
We side with the poor hunters of the wild game, who hang over the
fourpenny stalls on the quais, and dive into the dusty boxes after
literary pearls. These devoted men rise betimes, and hurry to the
stalls before the common tide of passengers goes by. Early morning
is the best moment in this, as in other sports. At half past seven,
in summer, the bouquiniste, the dealer in cheap volumes at second-
hand, arrays the books which he purchased over night, the stray
possessions of ruined families, the outcasts of libraries. The old-
fashioned bookseller knew little of the value of his wares; it was
his object to turn a small certain profit on his expenditure. It is
reckoned that an energetic, business-like old bookseller will turn
over 150,000 volumes in a year. In this vast number there must be
pickings for the humble collector who cannot afford to encounter the
children of Israel at Sotheby's or at the Hotel Drouot.
Let the enthusiast, in conclusion, throw a handful of lilies on the
grave of the martyr of the love of books,--the poet Albert Glatigny.
Poor Glatigny was the son of a garde champetre; his education was
accidental, and his poetic taste and skill extraordinarily fine and
delicate. In his life of starvation (he had often to sleep in
omnibuses and railway stations), he frequently spent the price of a
dinner on a new book. He lived to read and to dream, and if he
bought books he had not the wherewithal to live. Still, he bought
them,--and he died! His own poems were beautifully printed by
Lemerre, and it may be a joy to him (si mentem mortalia tangunt)
that they are now so highly valued that the price of a copy would
have kept the author alive and happy for a month.
OLD FRENCH TITLE-PAGES
Nothing can be plainer, as a rule, than a modern English title-page.
Its only beauty (if beauty it possesses) consists in the arrangement
and 'massing' of lines of type in various sizes. We have returned
almost to the primitive simplicity of the oldest printed books,
which had no title-pages, properly speaking, at all, or merely gave,
with extreme brevity, the name of the work, without printer's mark,
or date, or place. These were reserved for the colophon, if it was
thought desirable to mention them at all. Thus, in the black-letter
example of Guido de Columna's 'History of Troy,' written about 1283,
and printed at Strasburg in 1489, the title-page is blank, except
for the words,
Hystoria Troiana Guidonis,
standing alone at the top of the leaf. The colophon contains all
the rest of the information, 'happily completed in the City of
Strasburg, in the year of Grace Mcccclxxxix, about the Feast of St.
Urban.' The printer and publisher give no name at all.
This early simplicity is succeeded, in French books, from, say,
1510, and afterwards, by the insertion either of the printer's
trademark, or, in black-letter books, of a rough woodcut,
illustrative of the nature of the volume. The woodcuts