This apology must be followed by a brief defence of the taste and passion of book-collecting, and of the class of men known invidiously as book-worms and book-hunters. They and their simple pleasures are the butts of a cheap and shrewish set of critics, who cannot endure in others a taste which is absent in themselves.
Important new books have actually been condemned of late years because they were printed on good paper, and a valuable historical treatise was attacked by reviewers quite angrily because its outward array was not mean and forbidding. Of course, critics who take this view of new books have no patience with persons who care for "margins," and "condition," and early copies of old books. We cannot hope to convert the adversary, but it is not necessary to be disturbed by his clamour. People are happier for the possession of a taste as long as they possess it, and it does not, like the demons of Scripture, possess them. The wise collector gets instruction and pleasure from his pursuit, and it may well be that, in the long run, he and his family do not lose money. The amusement may chance to prove a very fair investment.
As to this question of making money by collecting, Mr. Hill Burton speaks very distinctly in "The Book-hunter:" "Where money is the object let a man speculate or become a miser. . . Let not the collector ever, unless in some urgent and necessary circumstances, part with any of his treasures. Let him not even have recourse to that practice called barter, which political philosophers tell us is the universal resource of mankind preparatory to the invention of money. Let him confine all his transactions in the market to purchasing only. No good comes of gentlemen-amateurs buying and selling." There is room for difference of opinion here, but there seems to be most reason on the side of Mr. Hill Burton. It is one thing for the collector to be able to reflect that the money he expends on books is not lost, and that his family may find themselves richer, not poorer, because he indulged his taste. It is quite another thing to buy books as a speculator buys shares, meaning to sell again at a profit as soon as occasion offers. It is necessary also to warn the beginner against indulging extravagant hopes. He must buy experience with his books, and many of his first purchases are likely to disappoint him. He will pay dearly for the wrong "Caesar" of 1635, the one WITHOUT errors in pagination; and this is only a common example of the beginner's blunders.
Collecting is like other forms of sport; the aim is not certain at first, the amateur is nervous, and, as in angling, is apt to "strike" (a bargain) too hurriedly.
I often think that the pleasure of collecting is like that of sport.
People talk of "book-hunting," and the old Latin motto says that "one never wearies of the chase in this forest." But the analogy to angling seems even stronger. A collector walks in the London or Paris streets, as he does by Tweed or Spey. Many a lordly mart of books he passes, like Mr. Quaritch's, Mr. Toovey's, or M.
Fontaine's, or the shining store of M.M. Morgand et Fatout, in the Passage des Panoramas. Here I always feel like Brassicanus in the king of Hungary's collection, "non in Bibliotheca, sed in gremio Jovis;" "not in a library, but in paradise." It is not given to every one to cast angle in these preserves. They are kept for dukes and millionaires. Surely the old Duke of Roxburghe was the happiest of mortals, for to him both the chief bookshops and auction rooms, and the famous salmon streams of Floors, were equally open, and he revelled in the prime of book-collecting and of angling. But there are little tributary streets, with humbler stalls, shy pools, as it were, where the humbler fisher of books may hope to raise an Elzevir, or an old French play, a first edition of Shelley, or a Restoration comedy. It is usually a case of hope unfulfilled; but the merest nibble of a rare book, say Marston's poems in the original edition, or Beddoes's "Love's Arrow Poisoned," or Bankes's "Bay Horse in a Trance," or the "Mel Heliconicum" of Alexander Ross, or "Les Oeuvres de Clement Marot, de Cahors, Vallet de Chambre du Roy, A Paris, Ches Pierre Gaultier, 1551;" even a chance at something of this sort will kindle the waning excitement, and add a pleasure to a man's walk in muddy London. Then, suppose you purchase for a couple of shillings the "Histoire des Amours de Henry IV, et autres pieces curieuses, A Leyde, Chez Jean Sambyx (Elzevir), 1664," it is certainly not unpleasant, on consulting M. Fontaine's catalogue, to find that he offers the same work at the ransom of 10pounds. The beginner thinks himself in singular luck, even though he has no idea of vending his collection, and he never reflects that CONDITION--spotless white leaves and broad margins, make the market value of a book.
