The Library [23]
left to professional hands. But the French and English writers give various recipes for cleaning old books, which the amateur may try on any old rubbish out of the fourpenny box of a bookstall, till he finds that he can trust his own manipulations. There are "fat stains" on books, as thumb marks, traces of oil (the midnight oil), flakes of old pasty crust left in old Shakespeares, and candle drippings. There are "thin stains," as of mud, scaling-wax, ink, dust, and damp. To clean a book you first carefully unbind it, take off the old covers, cut the old stitching, and separate sheet from sheet. Then take a page with "fat stains" of any kind of grease (except finger-marks), pass a hot flat iron over it, and press on it a clean piece of blotting paper till the paper sucks up the grease. Then charge a camel-hair brush with heated turpentine, and pass it over the places that were stained. If the paper loses its colour press softly over it a delicate handkerchief, soaked in heated spirits of wine. Finger-marks you will cover with clean soap, leave this on for some hours, and then rub with a sponge filled with hot water. Afterwards dip in weak acid and water, and then soak the page in a bath of clean water. Ink-stained pages you will first dip in a strong solution of oxalic acid and then in hydrochloric acid mixed in six times its quantity of water. Then bathe in clean water and allow to dry slowly.
Some English recipes may also be given. "Grease or wax spots," says Hannett, in "Bibliopegia," "may be removed by washing the part with ether, chloroform, or benzine, and placing it between pieces of white blotting paper, then pass a hot iron over it." "Chlorine water," says the same writer, removes ink stains, and bleaches the paper at the same time. Of chloride of lime, "a piece the size of a nut" (a cocoa nut or a hazel nut?) in a pint of water, may be applied with a camel's hair pencil, and plenty of patience. To polish old bindings, "take the yolk of an egg, beat it up with a fork, apply it with a sponge, having first cleaned the leather with a dry flannel." The following, says a writer in "Notes and Queries," with perfect truth, is "an easier if not a better method; purchase some bookbinder's varnish," and use it as you did the rudimentary omelette of the former recipe. Vellum covers may be cleaned with soap and water, or in bad cases by a weak solution of salts of lemon.
Lastly, the collector should acquire such books as Lowndes's "Bibliography," Brunet's "Manuel," and as many priced catalogues as he can secure. The catalogues of Mr. Quaritch, Mr. Bohn, M. Fontaine, M.M. Morgand et Fatout, are excellent guides to a knowledge of the market value of books. Other special works, as Renouard's for Aldines, Willems's for Elzevirs, and Cohen's for French engravings, will be mentioned in their proper place. Dibdin's books are inaccurate and long-winded, but may occasionally be dipped into with pleasure.
THE BOOKS OF THE COLLECTOR
The easiest way to bring order into the chaos of desirable books, is, doubtless, to begin historically with manuscripts. Almost every age that has left any literary remains, has bequeathed to us relics which are cherished by collectors. We may leave the clay books of the Chaldeans out of the account. These tomes resemble nothing so much as sticks of chocolate, and, however useful they may be to the student, the clay MSS. of Assurbanipal are not coveted by the collector. He finds his earliest objects of desire in illuminated manuscripts. The art of decorating manuscripts is as old as Egypt; but we need not linger over the beautiful papyri, which are silent books to all but a few Egyptologists. Greece, out of all her tomes, has left us but a few ill-written papyri. Roman and early Byzantine art are represented by a "Virgil," and fragments of an "Iliad"; the drawings in the latter have been reproduced in a splendid volume (Milan 1819), and shew Greek art passing into barbarism. The illumination of MSS. was a favourite art in the later empire, and is said to have been
Some English recipes may also be given. "Grease or wax spots," says Hannett, in "Bibliopegia," "may be removed by washing the part with ether, chloroform, or benzine, and placing it between pieces of white blotting paper, then pass a hot iron over it." "Chlorine water," says the same writer, removes ink stains, and bleaches the paper at the same time. Of chloride of lime, "a piece the size of a nut" (a cocoa nut or a hazel nut?) in a pint of water, may be applied with a camel's hair pencil, and plenty of patience. To polish old bindings, "take the yolk of an egg, beat it up with a fork, apply it with a sponge, having first cleaned the leather with a dry flannel." The following, says a writer in "Notes and Queries," with perfect truth, is "an easier if not a better method; purchase some bookbinder's varnish," and use it as you did the rudimentary omelette of the former recipe. Vellum covers may be cleaned with soap and water, or in bad cases by a weak solution of salts of lemon.
Lastly, the collector should acquire such books as Lowndes's "Bibliography," Brunet's "Manuel," and as many priced catalogues as he can secure. The catalogues of Mr. Quaritch, Mr. Bohn, M. Fontaine, M.M. Morgand et Fatout, are excellent guides to a knowledge of the market value of books. Other special works, as Renouard's for Aldines, Willems's for Elzevirs, and Cohen's for French engravings, will be mentioned in their proper place. Dibdin's books are inaccurate and long-winded, but may occasionally be dipped into with pleasure.
THE BOOKS OF THE COLLECTOR
The easiest way to bring order into the chaos of desirable books, is, doubtless, to begin historically with manuscripts. Almost every age that has left any literary remains, has bequeathed to us relics which are cherished by collectors. We may leave the clay books of the Chaldeans out of the account. These tomes resemble nothing so much as sticks of chocolate, and, however useful they may be to the student, the clay MSS. of Assurbanipal are not coveted by the collector. He finds his earliest objects of desire in illuminated manuscripts. The art of decorating manuscripts is as old as Egypt; but we need not linger over the beautiful papyri, which are silent books to all but a few Egyptologists. Greece, out of all her tomes, has left us but a few ill-written papyri. Roman and early Byzantine art are represented by a "Virgil," and fragments of an "Iliad"; the drawings in the latter have been reproduced in a splendid volume (Milan 1819), and shew Greek art passing into barbarism. The illumination of MSS. was a favourite art in the later empire, and is said to have been