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

MR. Septimus Rivington's recently published book, The Publishing Family of Rivington (Rivington, 1919; 10s. net), contains a certain amount of interesting information about the eighteenth-century book trade. Charles Rivington started publishing in 1711. His successor, John, succeeded Jacob Tonson (great-nephew of the original Jacob Tonson who published Dryden's works) as managing partner of the institution known as the "Conger," the association of booksellers formed to share the risks and the profits of publishing ventures. In this volume Mr. Rivington has printed a number of Conger documents in his possession. It is interesting to learn the trade value of well-known books of the period. Thus, one-eighth of Archbishop Tillotson's works is bought by Tonson in 1711 for £87 10s. In 1738 a third part of Watts's Hymns is worth £70.

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Mr. Rivington prints several extracts from old catalogues in his possession, which show that a book sale in the eighteenth century was a convivial affair. The catalogue of Thomas Osborne's stock-in-trade, consisting of books, copyrights, and shares in publications, is issued "to a select number of booksellers at the Queen's Head Tavern, in Paternoster Row, on Thursday, the ninth day of February, 1743/4, at Eleven of the Clock in the Forenoon. DINNER will be served on the table exactly at One of the Clock, consisting of Turkies and Chines, Hams and Chickens, Apple-pies, etc., and a Glass of very good Wine."

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Another recent book by a member of one of our great publishing families is Mr. John Murray's brief memoir of his father, John Murray the Third, the inventor of what was in his day an entirely new literary form, the Guide Book. Murray's first guide was issued in 1836. Three years later Karl Baedeker published a Handbüchlein of the same districts. Baedeker, like Shakespeare, disdained to invent his own plots. Murray's eighteen European guides were the Plutarch and Holinshed of the German's stupendous creations.

Those who hope, by taking advantage of the present rate of exchange, to secure German books at an eighth or tenth of their value will be sorry to hear that German publishers are in league to put a stop to such delightful bargains. They are insisting on being paid at the rate of about fivepence to the mark; so that your books will cost you as much as half their real price.

We were surprised, considering the blockade and the general shortage, at the excellent "get-up" of such recent German publications as we have seen. Among them were two illustrated volumes, one on Egyptian and the other on Negro art, published during the war, and produced in the most magnificent style. Almost more surprising were some exquisite little volumes of Czech poetry published at Prague, in which print, paper, and binding were all equally admirable.

A book for which one may search long in vain, but for which it is worth while to take some trouble, is the Memorie di Lorenzo da Ponte da Ceneda, three volumes, New York, 1829. Da Ponte is well known as the librettist of a number of Mozart's operas, and should be better known as the author of some of the most charming of eighteenth-century memoirs. His memoirs and poetical works were republished at Florence in 1871, and a French translation of the memoirs only was executed by M. C. D. de la Chavanne (Paris, Pagnerre, 1860). So far as we are aware, no English translation of this work exists. If this is indeed the case, it is high time that the defect was remedied. The Memorie Inutili of Da Ponte's earlier contemporary, Carlo Gozzi (three volumes, Venice, 1797), were translated by John Addington Symonds, and published in a very sumptuous illustrated edition by Nimmo in 1890.

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Another important book on the Italian eighteenth century, and one which it is not easy to find a copy of in any edition, is the Lettres Historiques et Critiques sur l'Italie of the Président Charles de Brosses (Paris, Ponthieu, An VII., and under the title Le Président de Brosses en Italie, Paris, 1858). De Brosses' letters make the best possible book to take on a voyage to Italy.

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Londoners cannot have failed to notice in the past weeks the presence of numerous posters—we have seen them in every part of the city—bearing the legend: "The Bishops must open Joanna Southcott's Box and save the country from ruin." We hope that this faint echo of a vanished notoriety may arouse among book-lovers an interest in Joanna's numerous literary works. The first of them, The Strange Effects of Faith, was published at Exeter in 1792, and from that time onwards she poured forth a stream of prophecies in prose and verse. In one of the latest of them (the last part of The Book of Wonder, if we remember rightly; but it is some years since we saw the book) is a superb engraving of a cradle subscribed for by Joanna's disciples against the birth of Shiloh. Shiloh, unhappily, was never born, and Joanna Southcott died three months after the presentation of the two-hundred-guinea cot. Enthusiastic bibliographers will find plenty of interest in the study of Southcottian literature; first editions are satisfactorily scarce. As for the box—well, why don't the Bishops open it? Who knows? it might save us from ruin, more effectually perhaps than all the politicians together.

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An important collection of autograph letters and historical documents, the property of the late Charles Fairfax Murray, is to be sold at Messrs. Sotheby's on Thursday and Friday, February 5th and 6th. The first 163 lots are autographs of famous artists, and include four letters of Blake, Michelangelo's specification for the tomb of Julius II., a letter of Benvenuto Cellini, a letter of Albrecht Dürer, illustrated by charming little sketches, letters of Gainsborough, Hogarth, Reynolds, and Constable, a letter of Titian written at the age of eighty-five, and a series of notes by Leonardo on the flight of birds.

Lots 164 to 280 are of historical, literary, and musical interest. One of the most interesting items is the MS. of Baudelaire's La Charogne, with a drawing of a woman by the poet. A beautifully written letter from Lucretia Borgia to Cardinal D'Este is another remarkable piece.

Lots 281-286 are documents which will appeal to collectors of relics of Mary Queen of Scots. The first is a document signed by Bothwell; four are letters of John Lesley, Bishop of Ross; and the last a document signed by William Davison, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Scotland.

ITEMS FROM THE BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES

Messrs. Maggs's catalogue (No. 386) of autograph letters and MSS. contains a number of items which will be of interest to musicians. In a letter to Birchall, the English music publisher, dated October, 1831, Beethoven writes the following sentence: "I have duly received the 5 £s, and thought previously you would not encrease the number of englishmen neglecting their word and honor, as I had the misfortune of meeting with two of this sort." He goes on to offer Birchall a Grand Sonata for the Pianoforte for £40, and a Trio for piano, violin, and cello for £50. The letter is priced at £21. There are also four letters of Wagner, a note in the handwriting of Sir Arthur Sullivan (12s. 6d.), a signed autograph piece by Gounod (£3 10s.), letters of Berger, Spontini, Balfe, Hiller and Heller, Verdi, Thalberg, Paganini, Brahms, and Liszt; there is an autograph musical MS. of Mendelssohn dated 1844 (£10 10s.), and another of a Scena composed by Haydn for Signora Banti (£85).

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Other pieces of the greatest interest are advertised in the same catalogue. A beautifully written letter in the hand of Benvenuto Cellini is priced £105. Another letter of slightly earlier date than Cellini's is the almost illegible scrawl of Götz von Berlichingen, the Knight of the Iron Hand (£32). The collection also includes several very important letters of Byron: one to John Murray (October 29th, 1819), in which he speaks of his Memoirs, entrusted to Moore, and afterwards solemnly burnt at Murray's house in Albemarle Street (£105): one to Kinnaird (1822) on the morality of Don Juan.

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Mr. Francis Edwards has also issued a catalogue of autograph letters which contains many items of remarkable interest. Hrothgar, a seventy-eight verse ballad (unpublished), by George Borrow, is a curious by-product of Beowulf scholarship, which ought to be worth the thirty pounds at which it is priced. Among the five autograph letters of Thomas Carlyle we find one addressed to the Bishop of Chester (August 23rd, 1840), in which Carlyle writes: "May I apply to you for a charitable service on behalf of a certain Mr. Mazzini, an Italian neighbour and friend of mine?" Two holograph manuscripts of John Evelyn are offered for £15 and £25 respectively. Ten pounds is the price of a letter from Sir William Hamilton (Naples, 1792) to Horace Walpole, in which Hamilton remarks of his famous wife: "She is ... most grateful to me for having saved her from the precipice into which she had good sense enough to see she must, without me, have inevitably fallen, and she sees that nothing but a constant good conduct can maintain the respect that is now shown her by everybody. It has often been remarked that a reformed rake makes a good husband, why not vice versa?" Why not? The answer is to be found in a letter from Nelson to Lady Hamilton (Yarmouth, 1801; £21). Other Nelson and Hamilton autographs, the Morrison collection, are on sale at Messrs. Suckling's, of Garrick Street.

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Other interesting letters and manuscripts offered by Messrs. Edwards are by Dr. Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Swinburne, Meredith, Landor, Pepys, Lamb, Southey, Thackeray.

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We are glad to notice that a manuscript by a young contemporary can command as big a price as ten guineas. This is the sum asked by Messrs. Davis and Orioli for the autograph MS. of Mr. Robert Nichols's The Faun's Holiday, published in his volume of Ardours and Endurances. To buy it would certainly be a speculation; but we believe there is a good chance of the speculation turning out profitably.

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Early Editions of Fielding: Messrs. Bowes and Bowes, of Cambridge, are asking £25 for the first edition (two volumes in contemporary calf) of The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of his Friend, Mr. Abraham Adams. A copy of the second edition, published in the same year as the first, is offered for 31s. 6d. by the Ex-Officers' Book Union, 16 Rathgar Avenue, West Ealing.

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Messrs. Pickering and Chatto are offering a copy of Endymion (Taylor and Hessey, 1818), in the original boards, for £78. Another interesting Keats relic is the original autograph MS. of a portion of Otho the Great, which is offered by Messrs. Maggs Bros. for £60. The MS., entirely in Keats's own writing, is a fragment of the first scene of the play.

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We note that a fine copy of Fulke Greville's Poems (1633), of which we recently had occasion to speak, is for sale at Messrs. Dobell's, the price being six guineas.

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Messrs. Maggs Bros.' new catalogue, Bibliotheca Aeronautica, price 5s., is a fascinating book. It contains the account of some fifteen hundred volumes dealing with the problem of flight from the earliest times to the present day. The first section contains books published prior to the invention of the Montgolfier Balloon in 1783. A fine copy of Francesco de Lana's Prodromo Overo Saggio di Alcune Inventioni appears in this section (£16 16s.). Paltock's famous flying novel, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, London, 1751, is offered at £15 15s., and the work which Restif de la Bretonne founded on it, La Découverte Australe par un Homme Volant, ou le Dédale Français, at £18 18s. Fine engravings are reproduced from these books.

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In the second section we find a number of Blanchard's narratives, including the account of the first aerial crossing of the Channel; we find Lunardi's Account of the First Aerial Voyage in England, London, 1784 (£7 10s.); several books on the Montgolfier brothers, as well as the works of the great Baron Munchausen, so famed for his aeronautical exploits.

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The third section of the catalogue deals with the evolution of aircraft from 1851 to 1899. An interesting item is the first edition of Rémy de Gourmont's En Ballon, Paris, 1883. A large number of works by Tissandier, author of the Bibliographie Aéronautique, Paris, 1887, naturally appear. We may here note the remarkable fact that by far the greater number of the volumes on flight are in French. British interest in the problem was not aroused till a good deal later, after the first practical difficulties had been solved. A first edition of Jules Verne's Robur le Conquérant, Paris, 1886, is included (15s.). His Six Weeks in a Balloon also deserves a place.

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In the fourth section we come to "Aeroplanes and Dirigibles in the Twentieth Century." The period opens with the intrepid Santos-Dumont and his flights and falls over Paris. His My Airships, London, 1904, is priced at 10s. The handsomest aeronautical work published during this period is perhaps La Conquête de l'Air, by Grand-Carteret and Delteil, a finely illustrated folio, offered at £3 3s.

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A fifth section contains pictures of famous balloon ascents, portraits of aeronauts, caricatures, and the like.

A. L. H.