Volume 1 — BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND NEWS

Correspondence from readers on all subjects of bibliographical interest is invited. The Editor will, to the best of his ability, answer all queries addressed to him.

GENERAL NOTES

ONE of the great autobiographies, and a very important document for any one who undertakes the most rudimentary study of the English romantic movement, is the Life of B. R. Haydon, drawn from his journals. He was the friend of Keats, Lamb, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt; he moved in many different spheres, among Dukes and politicians, and artists, and the debtors in King's Bench Prison. A man of boundless energy, an able writer capable of rendering his impressions vividly and with force, he was, indeed, everything but what he believed himself with passionate faith to be, what he even succeeded in persuading others that he was—a great painter. He was convinced—as firmly convinced as of the fact that two and two are four—that he was a genius as overwhelmingly great as Michael Angelo. He was, as a matter of fact, one of the second-rate romantic painters of the early nineteenth century, in some things a little better, in others a good deal worse, than his contemporaries in the same line of trade. The book is a fascinating study in psychology as well as one of the most vivid pictures of an interesting society. It is, therefore, unfortunate that it should now be a matter of some difficulty to lay one's hand on a copy. The first edition of the book appeared in 1853, the second and last some ten years later—more than half a century ago. We venture to express the pious hope that some beneficent publisher will reprint what is certainly one of the most peculiar human and historical documents of the nineteenth century.

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We learn from Mr. Leslie Chaundy, of Oxford, that he has purchased intact the whole library of the late Provost of Worcester. Dr. Daniel's collection comprises a great number of rare and interesting books, including, of course, all the volumes issued from the famous Daniel Press. A catalogue is, we understand, in course of preparation and will be issued shortly.

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October 31st saw the publication of the first number of the Bookman's Journal and Print Collector, qualified in a sub-title as The Journal for the Trade, for Collectors, and for Libraries. "Our aim," we read in the editorial, "is to be useful, not ornamental. Booksellers, publishers, librarians, and collectors alike from all parts of the country have agreed with the need for such a journal as this, and have given us generous support." The magazine contains reviews, a library supplement of "New Publications and Reprints of the Week," miscellaneous articles and notes on books and booksellers, prints and engravings. A useful feature of the journal will be the series of complete bibliographies of modern authors which it is proposed to publish. The first is devoted to the works of Hubert Crackanthorpe, who died in 1896, aged only twenty-six. Similar bibliographies of Masefield, Galsworthy, Conrad, Gissing, George Moore, and Merrick are in preparation. Those who wish to buy or sell books will be interested in the "Books Wanted" and "Books for Sale" columns of advertisements. Altogether, we think that this little paper will have no difficulty in substantiating its claims and will prove very valuable to all book-lovers.

Another interesting event in the world of books is the opening of the Chelsea Book Club at 65 Cheyne Walk. "It is being founded," we are told, "in the belief that in bookselling selection and specialisation are essential. It will aim, therefore, at having a stock of those books, new and second-hand, English and foreign, dealing with Belles Lettres and Art which appear to be most worthy of study and appreciation." A reading-room for the use of members will be attached to the club, in which lectures and exhibitions of works of art will be held from time to time. Those who wish to have further particulars as to membership, country book-service, lectures and exhibitions are asked to apply to the Secretary, 65 Cheyne Walk, London, S.W.3.

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At the sale, by Messrs. Sotheby, of the late Mr. W. J. Leighton's stock, to which we referred last month, a copy of Walton's Compleat Angler (1655) fetched £21 10s.; The Pricke of Conscience, fifteenth century M.S., £50; Myrrour and Description of the Worlde, printed by Laurence Andrews, circa 1530, £72. Important auction sales in the month of November were Messrs. Sotheby's sale of the late Sir Frank Crisp's library and the sale of Mr. Christie Miller's library on the 28th of the month. We shall have gone to press before the results of the sale are known. What will be paid for Lot 81, we wonder?—Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, the first edition, folio, 1623.

The Christie-Miller library contains many other books of extraordinary interest, among them three unique copies of works by Nicholas Breton: A Smale Handfull of Fragrant Flowers, Selected and Gathered out of the Lovely Garden of Sacred Scripture; A Floorish upon Fancie, As Gallant a Glose upon so Triflinge a Text as ever was Written; and The Workes of a Young Wit Trust up with a Fardell of Prettie Fancies. Robert Greene is represented by three unique copies, one of Gwydonius, and another of Arbasto, The Anatomie of Fortune; and the third of the earliest edition of A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, containing the passage, suppressed in all the later editions, in abuse of Gabriel Harvey and his brothers, which started the literary war between Greene and the pedant of Cambridge.

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ITEMS FROM THE BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES

It is possible, with a bundle of booksellers' catalogues, to waste more time more pleasantly than in any other way. As one idly turns the pages, catching sight here and there of a strange title or a book on some impossibly queer subject, one realises, more fully than one could do in years of social intercourse with one's fellow-men, how fantastic a thing is the human mind—a stable full of prancing hobby-horses for crochety horsemen to ride about the world. We can speculate pleasantly on the character of the practical parson who wrote the Clergyman's Intelligencer; or, a Compleat Alphabetical List of all the Patrons in England and Wales, with the ... Benefices in their Gift and their Valuation Annexed (1745), for which Mr. Mayhew asks 5s. In the same catalogue is offered that curiosity in the history of science, P. H. Gosse's Creation (Omphalus); an Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot, published in 1857, two years before the Origin of Species. The title, Ode to the Duke of Wellington and Other Poems, Written Between the Ages of Eleven and Thirteen Years, by Robert Charles Dallas (1819), calls up visions of some tight-trousered infant prodigy; and we wish that the book were not an example of fine binding, and that Mr. Chaundy could part with it for less than 30s. Just above the infant, alphabetically and perhaps also in order of merit, we find the name of D'Adelsward, the author of a volume of poems (of which, in our ignorance, we had never heard) entitled Les Cortèges Qui Sont Passés. The volume, which was published in 1903, is bound in pink watered silk, and costs four guineas. We have a vision of something even more prodigious than the infant of 1819.

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Mr. Chaundy has a number of first editions of Disraeli's novels for sale. The very scarce Contarini Fleming (1832) is priced at £6; The Voyage of Captain Popanilla (1828) at 35s.; Vivian Grey (1826) at 21s.; Venetia (1837) at 20s. A first edition of Borrow's Wild Wales, in three volumes (1862), is offered by Messrs. Heffer, of Cambridge, for £9 9s. It is almost worth paying that for the sake of the description, at the beginning of the book, of the negro who sat on the walls of Chester, spitting into the void. You can have George Eliot for a good deal less. Mr. James Miles, of Leeds, has a Silas Marner (first edition, 1861) for 25s. First editions of Robert Bridges are, we notice, priced a good deal higher than the later firsts of Robert Browning. Eros and Psyche costs 15s. at Messrs. Heffer's, and Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangan only 5s. The four volumes of the first edition of The Ring and the Book (1868) cost one 32s. at the same bookseller's.

Similarly Conrad firsts are more precious than Bennetts, if we may judge from the fact that Hilda Lessways (1911) costs 7s. at Mr. Chaundy's shop, while Chance and Victory (novels of Mr. Conrad's corresponding period), at Messrs. Heffer's, are priced at 12s. and 9s. respectively, and the precious Almayer's Folly of 1895 costs £3 3s.

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Mr. P. J. Dobell has already done good work in the field of bibliography. The catalogue published by him last year, under the title, The Literature of the Restoration, was a useful guide for all students of the period. He has now issued a supplementary catalogue of works connected with the Popish Plot.

Most of the pamphlets which he offers for sale are unknown to us; but here and there we light on an old friend. We can remember laughing heartily over A Modest Vindication of the Earl of S[haftesbur]y, in a Letter to a Friend Concerning His Being Elected King of Poland. The ironical eulogy of Shaftesbury with which the pamphlet begins is an admirable piece of satire. The Earl is praised for "his unshaken obedience to every Government he has been concerned in or lived under; his steady adherence to every religion that had but hopes to be established." It is interesting to note that in this pamphlet, written after the production of the Spanish Friar, and before the publication of Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden is regarded as a Whig poet. For the new King of Poland appoints "Jean Drydenurtzitz to be our Poet Laureate for writing panegyrics upon Oliver Cromwell and libels against his present master, King Charles II. of England." The deputy Laureate is no less a person than "Tom Shadworiski," or Shadwell, Dryden's most bitter enemy in the later years of the Plot. Mr. Dobell's price for the pamphlet is 7s. 6d. Two pamphlets in this collection refer to the fantastic rector of All Saints', Colchester—Edmund Hickeringill, one time chaplain in the Scottish regiments of the Commonwealth, and the author of the first retort to The Medal, The Mushroom, which was written and sent to press on the day following the publication of Dryden's poem—a feat of composition which he modestly suggests was due to divine inspiration.

Great News from the Old-Bayly, Mr. Gar's Recantation; or, the True Protestant Renegade, the Courantier Turn'd Tony, sounds interesting. Henry Care had the distinction of being the first to reply to Absalom and Achitophel. His Towzer the Second was published three weeks after the appearance of the Tory Satire, for Care was a true blue Protestant in those days. "His breeding," says Anthony Wood, "was in the nature of a Petty Fogger, a little despicable wretch ... a poor snivelling fellow." He was a poor literary hack, and at James II.'s accession, "for bread and money sake, and nothing else," he went over to the side in power and turned his pen against the Protestants.

Three pamphlets deal with Roger L'Estrange, or "Towzer," as he was nicknamed by his enemies. But there is one enchanting ballad entitled "A New Ballad on an Old Dog (Towzer) that Writes Strange-lee," of which Mr. Dobell does not seem to have a copy. We could wish that we had space to quote it. But we have embarked on a subject which needs treating at length. The literary history of the Popish Plot remains to be written. A volume of extracts joined together by explanatory notes, biographical, political, and critical, would be a thing of absorbing interest.

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We notice, by the way, in Mr. Dobell's catalogue that The London Mercury, or Moderate Intelligencer, from December 24th to 27th, 1688, may be purchased for 5s. It is to be hoped that the intelligence of its namesake of to-day will prove more than moderate.

A. L. H.