Chapter IX: The Collector’s Best Bet 264 (6)

When discussing printing in this country, it is impossible not to refer to Benjamin Franklin. He originated almost everything original in America. His projects are more talked about to-day than when he lived. Franklin, as a child in Boston, had had a taste of the dull literary offering of the Pilgrim Fathers. The _New England Primer_ was then the best seller. When he became a printer he published edition after edition of it. Although Franklin himself records the sale of 37,100 of these primers, there is but one copy known to exist to-day. Mr. William S. Mason, of Evanston, Illinois, is the owner of this unique copy. Surely, in some New England attic there must be another. The collector can but hope! I have the only one known printed by his successor, David Hall--shall I ever obtain one from Benjamin’s own press?

In 1749 Franklin wrote and published _Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania_. This work greatly interests me and all those who claim the University of Pennsylvania as their Alma Mater. It was soon after Franklin issued this that he and twenty-three other citizens of Philadelphia banded together as an association which soon completed plans to establish an academy for young men. It opened in 1751. So this little book is a part of the actual foundation of the University of Pennsylvania. When he was an old man, eighty-two, to be exact, Franklin was still keenly interested in new books for children. He had already given his favorite grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, a fine printing press with types, and set him up as a printer. Under the guidance of his celebrated grandfather, young Bache printed _Lessons for Children from Two to Five Years Old_.

The older man was so delighted with his efforts that he decided, with a business acumen not diminished with the years, to market the books for him. Believing Boston to be a good commercial outlet, he wrote, on November 26, 1788, to his nephew Jonathan Williams:--

LOVING COUSIN:--

I have lately set up one of my grandchildren, Benja. F. Bache, as a Printer here, and he has printed some very pretty little books for children. By the sloop Friendship, Capt. Stutson, I have sent a Box address’d to you, containing 150 of each volume, in Sheets, which I request you would, according to your wonted goodness, put in a way of being dispos’d of for the Benefit of my dear Sister. They are sold here, bound in marbled Paper at 1 s. a volume; but I should suppose it best, if it may be done, to Sell the whole to some Stationer, at once, unbound as they are; in which case, I imagine that half a Dollar a Quire may be thought a reasonable price, allowing usual Credit if necessary.

My love to your Family, and Believe me ever,

Your affectionate Uncle

B. FRANKLIN.

The original of this letter is in the collection of Miss Rosalie V. Halsey.

Competitors and collectors have often complained that I have frequently purchased at auction rare books that they especially desired and that I did not give them a chance. Quite true! But I have often tasted the same bitter medicine myself. I recall, very vividly, a certain day in May 1913, when the Crane sale was being held in New York and there was a tiny _Royal Primer_ included among the items, which I felt belonged to my collection of children’s books. Printed in Philadelphia in 1753 by James Chattin, this _Royal Primer_ was the only one of its kind in existence. In the good old days when George D. Smith was czar of the auction rooms, all other dealers and collectors were under a terrific strain the moment he appeared. We knew it was almost hopeless to bid against him.

At that time Mr. Smith represented Mr. Henry E. Huntington. He entered the auction room armed with as many unlimited bids as a porcupine has quills. Mr. Smith seemed to take a peculiar delight in running up bids on the little juvenile books I craved. And I had set my heart on the _Royal Primer_ from the moment it was shown to the audience--a beautiful copy in its original sheep cover. I was prepared to pay as high as $200 for it, but as I watched Smith, the very shadow and auction voice of Mr. Huntington himself, I had serious doubts of obtaining it. The bidding started at ten dollars. Imagine my emotion when it rose rapidly to $1000! I felt a complete bankrupt. It was no small task to bid against this octopus of the game, and when the _Royal Primer_ was finally mine at the absurdly high sum of $1225 I arose quickly and went out for air.

The contents of the primers are generally the same. They begin with a rhymed alphabet with illustrations, words, and syllables for spelling lessons. Many of the earliest ones contain verses which were supposed to have been written by the English martyr, John Rogers, just before his execution, for the benefit of his “nine small children, and one at the breast.” Mrs. Rogers and the children are depicted calmly watching the head of the family at the stake as he is about to go up in flames. Their little faces are like so many cranberries.

Later primers are equally amusing, sometimes with frontispieces of George III, and others have dubious likenesses of Our President. Not even the mother of George Washington could have recognized her boy’s features in these crude pictures. But the primers were very popular, and the Puritans continued to issue them. The _Beauties of the Primer_ was followed by the _Primer Improved_ and the _Progressive Primer_, a more elaborate departure, which boasts colored illustrations.

It was during the early part of the eighteenth century that the Puritan taste began to broaden a bit. In addition to the early primers and catechisms, children were encouraged to read the Holy Bible in verse and semireligious books which had come into fashion. A friend--Mr. Thomas E. Streeter, of New York, a most discriminating collector--found in a volume of pamphlets, _Some Excellent Verses for the Education of Youth_, to which is added _Verses for Little Children, by a Friend_, Boston, printed by Bartholomew Green, 1708. It was the only copy extant, having miraculously escaped the rough usage of tiny hands. I despaired of obtaining it, when one day Mr. Streeter generously sent it to me with his compliments. Here is a sample of the Biblical verse as it was written to impress the small reader. Imagine the youth of New England, born with all the lively desires of a modern child, spending a Sunday afternoon memorizing such rhythms as:--

Though I am Young, yet I may Die,
And hasten to Eternity.

Another melancholy book of poetry for children was printed in 1740 in New Haven by T. Green. My copy is the only one known to-day. Its pleasant beginning must have charmed the small reader; thus: “Children, you must die in a short time. You will soon go to a Heaven of Joy or a burning Hell.” There are seven poems in each. The author cannot resist depicting a lugubrious future. Imagine your own child memorizing this sample, called “The Play”:--

Now from School I haste away,
And joyful rush along to play;
Eager I for my marbles call,
The whistling top or bouncing Ball.
The changing marbles to me show,
How mutable all things below.
My fate and theirs may be the same
Dasht in an instant from the Game.
The Hoop, swift rattling on the Chase,
Shows me how quick Life runs its Race.
My hoop and I like turnings have.
So fast Death drives me to my Grave.

Some Actors of eminence made their appearance,
And the servants, Nouns common, with speed made a clearance
Of tables, chairs, stools, and such moveable things,
As, wherever it goes, the Noun always brings.
And these actors the VERBS, when they’d room to DISPLAY,
Both WRESTLED and TUMBLED; and GAMBOL’D away;
They PLAY’D and they RAN, they JUMP’D and they DANC’D,
FRISK’D, AMBLED, and KICK’D, LAUGH’D, CHATTER’D and PRANC’D.

VERBS ACTIVE AND PASSIVE.

The company, laughing, now stood up in ranks,
Whilst the ACTIVE VERBS play’d on the PASSIVE their pranks.
But some were so lazy they SLEPT on the floor,
And some were so stupid they STOOD by the door.
In short, all the actions that mortals can DO,
Were DONE by these VERBS, and ENDUR’D by them too.

TWO PAGES FROM “THE INFANT’S GRAMMAR”]

Among all the books I have seen that were published at this period in the Colonies, I have found but one which might be taken seriously if issued to-day. It treats upon an international problem, good behavior, which, alas, is the bugaboo of children the world over. Personally I have always felt that it is the most terrible and obnoxious of all the moralities--but then, I’m only an old bachelor! _The School of Good Manners Composed for the Help of Parents in teaching their Children how to carry it in their places during their Minority_ was brought out in Boston, reprinted and sold by T. and J. Fleet at the Heart and Crown, in Cornhill, 1772. It begins with “Twenty mixt Precepts,” such as “Honour the Magistrates,” and tells little children plainly what and what not to do. Under a heading of “Behaviour at the Table,” it admonishes: “Spit not, cough not, nor blow thy nose at the table, if it may be avoided.” “Behaviour When in Company” is a little less stringent, perhaps, than one might expect. It reads: “Spit not in the room, but in the corner.” Further: “Let thy countenance be moderately cheerful, neither laughing nor frowning.” “For Behaviour at School” one must “Bawl not aloud in making complaints,” and “Jog not the table or desk on which another writes.”

It is not probable that these righteously exemplary books could be all things to all children. What a welcome change the _Prodigal Daughter_ must have been! Isaiah Thomas, of Worcester, printed her history in 1771, in Boston, before he became famous as the publisher of simpler children’s books such as _Goody Two Shoes_. In many of these early books the title page relates practically the entire story in scenario form. A case in point is the _Prodigal Daughter, or a strange and wonderful relation, shewing how a gentleman of vast estates in Bristol, had a proud and disobedient Daughter, who, because her parents would not support her in all her extravagance, bargained with the Devil to poison them. How an Angel informed her Parents of her design. How she lay in a trance four days; and when she was put in the grave, she came to life again._ Quite a happy ending for an eighteenth-century prodigal!

The gradual change which took place in juvenile literature was brought about partly by the captivating whimsicalities of Oliver Goldsmith. The finest collection of Goldsmith’s books is in the beautiful library of my dear friend, William M. Elkins, but I have a few of Goldsmith’s juveniles that even he has been unable to obtain. Goldsmith’s delightful books for children, which his publisher, John Newbery, had bound in gilt paper and adorned with woodcuts, were sent over here from his far-famed shop at the corner of Saint Paul’s Churchyard in London. When they were reprinted in staid New England, they were a startling innovation to the book trade. Then old ballads began to return to the market, each with some striking change also. Contrast the stern outpourings of the learned Cotton Mather with Doctor Goldsmith’s “Elegy on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize”:--

Good people, all, with one accord
Lament for Madame Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word--
From those who spoke her praise....

She strove the neighborhood to please
With manners wondrous winning;
And never followed wicked ways--
Unless when she was sinning!...

The _Royal Battledoor_, the _Mother Goose Melodies_, _A Pretty Book for Children_, and some of the best verse ever written for juveniles then came into being. “Bah, Bah, Black Sheep,” “Pease-Porridge Hot,” “Little Tommy Tucker”--have they since been improved upon? I doubt it.

BAH, BAH, BLACK SHEEP

Bah, bah, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, sir; yes, sir, I have three bags full.
One for my master, one for his dame,
But none for the little boy who cries in the lane.

PEASE-PORRIDGE HOT

Pease-porridge hot,
Pease-porridge cold,
Pease-porridge in the pot,
Nine days old.
Can you spell that with four letters?
Yes, I can: T-H-A-T.

LITTLE TOMMY TUCKER

Little Tommy Tucker
Sings for his supper;
What song will he sing?
White bread and butter.
How will he cut it
Without e’er a knife?
How will he be married
Without e’er a wife?

I was spending a week-end last summer with some friends who have a large library consisting chiefly of the classical English authors. I had been out one afternoon, and as I returned to the house, was met halfway by my hostess. She had a distraught look, and before I could inquire what had happened, she said, “I am frightfully upset! What do you think I found Tommy doing just now in the library? Reading that nasty old book, Fielding’s _Tom Jones_!”

Her son Tommy was twelve years old. “What have you done about it?” I asked, trying to suppress a smile.

“I took it from him and put it in the stove!”

She refused to believe me when I told her that _Tom Jones_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Pamela_ were read aloud in the evening to all members of the family in Puritan New England, and Miss Rosalie V. Halsey relates that when certain passages became too affecting, the more sensitive listeners retired to their rooms to weep! Sometime later I showed her my copy of _Tom Jones_, abridged especially for youthful reading, with its crude little woodcut facing the title page, and this explanatory verse beneath:--

This print describes a good man’s heart
Who meant to take the orphan’s part,
And may distress forever find
A friend like him to be so kind.

The Uncle’s Present,
A NEW BATTLEDOOR.

Published by Jacob Johnson, 147 Market Street Philadelphia.

TITLE PAGE OF “THE UNCLE’S PRESENT”]

The moral of _Tom Jones_, as translated for its youthful readers, seems to boil down to this: If you are a good child you will never annoy your neighbors! Fancy Henry Fielding’s amusement when _Tom Jones_ appeared abridged for children! What a marvelous leap this was from the dry-as-dust New England primers and Protestant Tutors, from austere catechisms to--_Tom Jones_!

Printers early discovered that books for children should be made in proportion to their little clients--small. Miniature volumes have always held a great fascination for children of all ages. Their very neatness and compactness make them seem the more precious and desirable. Perhaps it was with a view to making Bible stories valued more highly by their small readers that they were printed in tiny volumes called Thumb Bibles. These adorable wee volumes, illustrated with crude woodcuts, are extremely rare. Not long ago a lady came to my Philadelphia office with an old-fashioned hand bag--the silk gathered sort, roomy if not beautiful. I noticed that it stuck out in little points, and wondered what on earth she could have brought in it. My curiosity was more than gratified when she emptied it upon my desk--some twenty Thumb Bibles! When I asked her what she wanted for these little charmers she shook her head and said that anything I cared to offer would be acceptable. I suggested $300. She looked at me aghast.

“Why,” she said, “I would have been willing to take twenty-five!”

Children began to assert themselves, beginning with the last quarter of the eighteenth century. They became individuals rather than so much parental property. Thomas Bradford must have realized this when, in 1775, he placed such juvenile delights upon the market as _The Scotch Rogue_, _Moll Flanders_, _Lives of Highwaymen_, _Lives of Pirates_, _The Buccaneers of America_, and _The Lives of the Twelve Cæsars_.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century shockers began to appear. Lurid tales of dastardly deeds were read by children who hitherto knew life through such stories as _The Prize for Youthful Obedience_, _The Search After Happiness_, _Little Truths_, and other edifying concoctions. The colorful experiences of _Motherless Mary, A Young and Friendless Orphan who was eventually Decoyed to London_, appearing from the presses of a New York house in 1828, interpreted life in a new if less safe way. John Paul Jones’s _Life_ was issued with a terrifying frontispiece and in a dress to attract small boys with an admiration and envy for buccaneers and their fierce and bloody lives. Even Noah Webster, that staid dictionarist, wrote _The Pirates, A Tale for Youth_.

The interest in American history began at the close of the Revolution. The scenes of all the juvenile histories were formerly laid in foreign countries. The American Colonies now had their own history, and some of the rarest, and perhaps the most attractive to the student, are those dealing with this subject. _The History of America abridged for the use of Children of all Denominations, adorned with cuts_, Philadelphia, Wrigley and Berriman, 1795, is engaging and wonderful. The little illustrations are marvelous examples of the illustrator’s skill. On account of the expense, the publisher duplicated the portraits, and one cut served for several worthies. Thus Christopher Columbus, General Montgomery, and His Excellency Richard Howel, Governor of New Jersey, were depicted exactly alike, the American eighteenth-century military costume looking picturesque and fearful on Columbus.

The _New York Cries_, printed and sold by Mahlon Day in 1826, is particularly entertaining. According to the introduction of this little book: “New York island is 15 miles long, and from one to two miles broad. It is laid out in spacious streets and avenues, with large squares and market places. The circuit of the city is about eight miles, and the number of buildings which it contains is estimated at 30,000, and the inhabitants at about 172,000.”

I cannot resist quoting the cry of Sand, as it is a reflection of the time when New Yorkers used sand on their floors, instead of costly Oriental rugs:--

Sand! Here’s your nice white Sand!

Sand, O! white Sand, O!
Buy Sand for your floor;
For so cleanly it looks
When strew’d at your door.

This sand is brought from the seashore in vessels, principally from Rockaway Beach, Long Island. It is loaded into carts, and carried about the streets of New York, and sold for about 12½ cents per bushel. Almost every little girl or boy knows that it is put on newly scrubbed floors, to preserve them clean and pleasant.

But since people have become rich, and swayed by the vain fashions of the world, by carpeting the floors of their houses, there does not appear to be so much use for Sand as in the days of our worthy ancestors.

_Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation_ was published in Philadelphia by W. Johnson in 1836. Issued nearly a century ago, it is still enshrined in our hearts. Although there were many editions issued in America, few have survived the tooth of time and the voracity of these youthful readers. The Philadelphia edition had perfect pictures properly painted, and it is one of the most charming morsels ever devised “to please the palates of Pretty, Prattling Playfellows.” Two quotations are given in order to bring us all back to the time long ago when Peter Piper meant so much to us.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Villiam Veedon vip’s his Vig and Vaistcoat;
Did Villiam Veedon vipe his Vig and Vaistcoat?
If Villiam Veedon vip’d his Vig and Vaistcoat,
Vhere are the Vig and Vaistcoat Villiam Veedon vip’d?

The publisher’s excuse of presenting Peter Piper to the public is worthy of the book itself:--

He Prays parents to Purchase this Playful Performance, Partly to Pay him for his Patience and Pains; Partly to Provide for the Printers and Publishers; but Principally to Prevent the Pernicious Prevalence of Perverse Pronunciation.

P p

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peppers;
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled Peppers?
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled Peppers Peter Piper picked?

PAGE FROM “PETER PIPER’S PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES OF PLAIN AND PERFECT PRONUNCIATION”]

The book will always remain attractive to us, but when we think of the youthful minds it has mixed, the jaws it has dislocated, the tongues it has tied, we can only remark that we love it for its faults!

When I look into these old editions, these picturesque little volumes, which reveal so charmingly the quickening change from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, I am surprised that some enterprising publisher does not reissue them to-day. Such stories as _Pug’s Visit to Mr. Punch_, _Who Killed Cock Robin_, _The History of Little Fannie_, _Little Eliza and Little Henry_, as well as the droll _Old Dame Trudge and Her Parrot_, would go as well now as one hundred years ago. I think they would make a fortune for someone--although I do not guarantee it!

Two specially made miniature bookcases house my whole collection of children’s books. On either side of a large sixteenth-century Spanish bookcase they hang against the wall, and visitors to my Philadelphia home take delight in looking at their quaint illustrations and the still quainter text. But alas, my library is now like a nursery without children. The whole family--eight hundred--have traveled to New York and are on exhibition in the New York Public Library, where they may be seen by all who are interested.

VII

OLD BIBLES

What is the greatest discovery in the history of books? This is the question with which I am constantly bombarded. In letters from all parts of the world the embryonic bookman, the novice collector, the casual lover of books, the intelligent, the stupid--they make this their leading question. And although I have never been accused of unseemly virtue, I rejoice that the answer is exactly as it should be: the first printed Bible.

The momentous recognition of the now famed Gutenberg Bible occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century. Book collecting was already beginning to discard its sombre, conservative guise as an occupation of the religious in monasteries, or as a pastime of the old and very rich. Now this discovery came like a flaming meteor against the literary sky.

So many astounding finds have been made in out-of-the-way places, it is somewhat surprising that this first and greatest printed work should have been identified in the very heart of Paris. In a preceding article I have related the remarkable manner in which several other rare books turned up. There was the copy of _Pilgrim’s Progress_ which made its way from obscurity in the barber shop of a small English town to international fame in a London auction room. And another valuable book, Shakespeare’s _Venus and Adonis_, hid unsuspected for years in the lumber room of an English estate before it was brought to light; and a similar copy, equally rare, was used as an archer’s target at Shrewsbury before its value was accidentally recognized. What irony, then, that this, the greatest book of all time, the Gutenberg Bible, should have rested in the very centre of a literary stronghold perhaps centuries before its unique preëminence was detected!

Thousands of eyes during that time had gazed uncomprehendingly upon this marvel of the printer’s art in the celebrated library of Cardinal Mazarin in Paris. How often it was read by strangely undiscerning eyes, eyes of students, eyes of connoisseurs, looked upon by true lovers of the antique! They saw nothing in it but a Bible--one more early Bible. Such men as Descartes, Voiture, and Corneille doubtless turned its pages many times. Certainly it must have been something of a curiosity, even in those days. But what scant imaginations they had! The very idea chills me!

It will forever remain a mystery, that Gutenberg Bible in Paris. How did it get there from Germany? Who brought it? How did it happen to be in the Mazarin Library? Did some serious-minded book agent of old France, if there were any then, bargain quietly with the scarlet-robed Cardinal, or was the road to its destination one of intrigue, of dishonor, and finally violence? Alas, that we book lovers will never know! A little pilfering here and there was never known to upset Mazarin, if the book he coveted was worthy of it.

Often I have wondered, when visiting his musty library, what the ancient walls behind the shelves could tell were they suddenly given the power of speech. As the old proverb runs, “Walls have ears.” Nor is it difficult in that majestic palace to watch through half-closed eyes, veiled, of course, by your imagination, the proud old churchman as he pridefully surveys his magnificent books. Perhaps you can see him lingering before the provocative loveliness of gleaming parchment and morocco covers; observe him as he tenderly removes from its resting place some diabolical work of Machiavelli; or he may pace elegantly between the ancient lecterns and reading posts to bend in silent tribute before the disquieting beauty of some massive old missal. I have easily pictured not only His Eminence but many assistants as well, searching among the ancient tomes; sandaled monks, learned scholars and librarians, poets and courtiers, they have all passed me in that renowned library, unconscious of my presence. And how the chains still jangle which for centuries have held captive certain small and attractive volumes on shelf and table. Some sophisticated doubters may sigh as they read these lines, thinking: “Poor Rosenbach, what the vineyards of France must have done to him!”

After I purchased the Melk copy of the Gutenberg Bible last year, I learned, from the hordes of visitors who came to see it and through the letters of congratulation and inquiry with which I was flooded, that most people thought this the only copy in existence. As a matter of fact, about forty-three copies have been discovered thus far, ten of which are now in public and private libraries in this country. Perhaps there are others in hiding; there is always that glorious chance. But the very fact that there were these other copies, scattered in various libraries in the old centres of Europe, copies which were there, doubtless, from the time Gutenberg accomplished his stupendous work, makes the more remarkable the first disclosure of this Bible, nearly three centuries after its publication.

Think of the many wise graybeards who spent their lives searching for knowledge in the vast libraries of Vienna, of Berlin, of Göttingen, of Prague, and at Oxford and Cambridge, those centuries ago; men who saw and read these volumes and yet did not question their strange peculiarity. For although the Gutenberg Bible gives the effect of a fastidiously written manuscript, it is not only the earliest but actually the most beautiful work of printing the world has ever known. It was the first work to come from any press using movable types. Whether these were cut from wood or moulded in lead can never be conclusively proved. This is immaterial, however, except to the student of typography. The type itself is a large Gothic one, and the ink, now nearly five centuries old, is to-day as black and glossy as the hair of a Japanese beauty. The majestic Gothic lettering was the prevailing one used in Germany for ecclesiastical works at that time, and therefore it was but natural to use it as a model. The pages of the Gutenberg Bible are perfectly spaced in double columns.

The great work was published in two states; some copies were printed on paper, others on vellum. The feel of the paper always fascinates me, so firm it is, so beautiful in appearance. It seems alive, yet there is something definitely final about it. It is as though the paper of the Gutenberg Bible had proudly indicated from its inception that nothing finer, nothing more perfect ever could be made. Nor is the vellum of any other old book of finer texture than that which Gutenberg, the master printer, used. The rarest vellum is from the thinnest, the most velvety part of the inner skin of the sheep. This Gutenberg was careful to select, and his Bibles printed on vellum are much more valuable to-day than those printed on paper.

It thrills the lover of books when he observes the superb taste Johann Gutenberg showed in the year 1455. A decade later, printers, his pupils, began to be patronized by princes of Church and State. It was they who ordered the most beautiful books, made especially for their private gratification. But there is no record of Gutenberg having any such incentive as wealth or approbation. He must have followed some compelling desire of his own which led to the creation of the perfect book.

It was about 1750 that Guillaume-François de Bure, a young Frenchman, proved himself a veritable prodigy among discoverers. At that time he employed every moment he could spare, working in the Mazarin Library, which, since the death of its founder, had fortunately been in the hands of intelligent and appreciative men. It happened that De Bure one day stumbled upon two old volumes he could not recall having seen before. He glanced at them as he passed, and was so taken by their unusual beauty that he resolved to return to study them as soon as possible. Almost the first thing De Bure observed was that there were forty-two lines on the page. He had seen, in those magnificent ecclesiastical surroundings, many wonderful Bibles. In a state of hopeful excitement he looked for and finally located another copy of the glorious book similar to the one in the Mazarin Library, in the Electoral Library in Mainz. This is the copy which is now in the French National Library. De Bure read the inscription in an ancient hand at the end of each volume, several lines stating that the books had been rubricated and bound in the year of our Lord 1456. With these slender facts as a basis, he set about further to establish the authenticity of the greatest bibliographical discovery of all time.

There were two issues of the Gutenberg (or, as it was originally called, the Mazarin,) Bible. The first contains forty, forty-one, and forty-two lines to the column. But this, as a rule, is at the beginning of the book, where it is apparent that Gutenberg was experimenting; he was trying to evolve to his own satisfaction the form of what has since been acclaimed the greatest monument of the printer’s art. To obtain the very first issue of the Gutenberg Bible--that is an achievement! Of all books in the world it is the most important to possess in its elemental state, for it was in this condition that it first saw the light of day. It is true that there is nothing nobler, nothing finer, nothing more beautiful than the Gutenberg Bible in its last completed phase, but to me the embryonic stage of the first printed book is the most important. Only the first “gathering,” as we say technically, comprises the first printed book.

I believe Gutenberg began printing his Bible a little before 1450, and devoted the first three or four years to perfecting the movable types. But I doubt if it could have been much earlier than 1455 when he finally completed the first copy. In all probability he was assisted by his friend, Johann Fust, who supplied the money with which Gutenberg bought materials for a press and types. Aided, too, by Fust’s son-in-law, Peter Schöffer, they brought eternal fame to the name of their already famous city, Mainz. Later many apprentices from Gutenberg’s and Fust’s atelier went southward to France, Italy, and Spain, where they established the first presses in the great cities of Paris, Rome, Florence, and Seville. These specimens of early printing are known to the specialists as incunabula, or books representing the cradle of printing. The term has been extended so as to include all works printed before 1500.

Some authorities have questioned the claim of Gutenberg as the inventor of printing. Coster of Haarlem has been put forth as the real discoverer. There are fragments of early printing with Gothic types that students of typography have dubbed Costeriana. I cannot enter here into a discussion of this controversy. Perhaps both sides are right. At any rate, I have read reams and reams on the subject and have become sadder if not wiser at each perusal. Mademoiselle Pellechet, a celebrated bibliophile of the nineteenth century, studied the question deeply. In the end, as bibliography is a science in which women have distinguished themselves, a woman will probably say the last word! Perhaps the best person to give an opinion on the subject to-day is Miss Belle da Costa Greene, the learned director of the Pierpont Morgan Library.

When I visited England two or three years ago I was invited to Windsor Castle to see the beautiful library belonging to King George. The librarian, the Honorable John Fortescue, the authority on the history of the English Army, showed me many magnificent volumes and manuscripts. Among them was that glorious rarity known to the initiated as the 1457 Psalter, printed on vellum by Fust and Schöffer. There are in the royal library many works of great historical importance, and I listened with delight to his fascinating stories relating to them.

Often during the afternoon I stood before the windows of the library to look out upon the vista of green lawns, the winding Thames, and Eton College a few miles in the distance. I thought of Thomas Gray and others who had known so intimately the country about me, of famous men whose names were connected with famous books, and a sudden desire came over me--a desire to see and pay homage to the most beautiful book in the world. By the time I was ready to leave the Castle I had decided to motor over to Eton.

When I arrived I immediately went to the library attendant and asked him to let me see the Gutenberg Bible. This copy in the library of Eton College is to my mind the most noble specimen of all. It is in its contemporary binding of old leather decorated with the original metal clasps and bosses, and it bears the name of the binder, Johann Fogel, who goes down in history as the binder of the first printed book.

At the very time of my visit to Eton the newspapers in England were running editorial comment about several purchases I had just made privately and at auction sales. They complained I was taking away the greatest monuments of literature from their shores. The old attendant at Eton, noting my enthusiasm as I turned the pages of this beautiful Bible, said to me, in a tone tickled with pride, “Wouldn’t that Doctor Rosenbach like to carry off this Gutenberg Bible too?”

Gutenberg’s Bible was set up from the Latin manuscript version designated by scholars as the Vulgate. Previous to its issue most manuscript Bibles were written either in Greek or Hebrew. Now, for the first time, it appeared available to all who could read, translated into Latin, the “vulgar” or common language of the Church.

During the past few years I have purchased four copies of the Gutenberg Bible. The first, at the Hoe sale in 1912, was an edition printed on paper, and with Alfred Quaritch I later sold it to the late P. A. B. Widener, of Philadelphia. It is now in the collection of his son, Mr. Joseph Widener. The second copy, in a superb binding by Fogel, and now in the greatest private collection of Bibles in this country, came from the library of the late James W. Ellsworth, of Chicago. It was in a strange manner that I bought this copy. I was halfway across the Atlantic. Before sailing I had been treating for its purchase, along with the rest of his splendid library. I completed the transaction by wireless. It was thus that the fifteenth century and the twentieth met in mid-ocean! To buy a Gutenberg Bible by radio--it seemed almost sacrilegious.

And this recalls another story. I met for the first time aboard one of the great liners a distinguished collector, a man of great taste and judgment. He said to me in the smoking room, fifteen hundred miles out of New York, “Have you a set of the four folios of Shakespeare?”

“Yes,” I replied, “a fine one, the Trowbridge set; at least, I have if it has not been sold.”

He asked me to verify it by wireless, which I did, and on receipt of the message he purchased it in mid-Atlantic. No man that ever lived had the prophetic foresight of Shakespeare; yet even he could not have pictured such a thing. And the price? That is still another story.

I purchased another Gutenberg Bible, printed on paper, at the Carysfort sale in London, four years ago, and paid £9500--a little less than $50,000--for it. To-day it rests, with other great examples of printing and literature, in the library of Mr. Carl H. Pforzheimer, in New York City.

The Melk copy, which I bought at the Anderson Galleries last year, was as exciting an acquisition as I have ever made. Of course there were many collectors and dealers besides myself who yearned to own it. The price I paid for it--$106,000--was like the first shot of the Revolution, heard around the world. Mrs. E. S. Harkness bought this copy from me and most graciously bestowed it upon the Library of Yale University, in memory of Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness. It is certainly one of the greatest gifts ever made to a university in this country. So many copies have passed into public institutions during the past few years, it is unlikely that many more perfect ones can come into the market. What will its price be in the future? One could as well stem the tides as to block its steady and irresistible march. It is only a matter of time. To-day it sells for more than $100,000; more than $1,000,000 will some day be a reasonable price for it.

Although much stress has been laid upon the value and rarity of the Gutenberg forty-two-line Bible, and it is generally thought to be the most valuable in the world, I believe the thirty-six-line Bible (known as the Pfister, or Bamberg, Bible) is infinitely rarer. It also was the work of a Mainz printing press, and was probably made under Gutenberg’s supervision, after he had finished the one which now bears his name. In the old days it was thought to have been printed before the Gutenberg Bible, but scholars have proved by long study that mistakes are made which could only have been the result of using Gutenberg’s for copy, instead of one of the written texts. There are only fourteen copies of this thirty-six-line Bible known; four are in England, seven in Germany, one is in Belgium, one in France, and another in Austria. Yet in all this broad land there is not one copy. But I rejoice in having a single leaf of it, which, I assure you, I prize greatly.

Probably the most beautiful Bible after the Gutenberg is in two volumes, forming what is known as the 1462 Bible. It is the first one that is dated, and was issued at Mainz, printed by Fust and Schöffer, August 14, 1462. The copies on vellum seem to be more numerous than those on paper. I bought the last copy, belonging to the Earl of Carysfort, for £4800. It is not only the first dated Bible but the earliest example of a book formally divided into two volumes. But it is not considered a rare edition of the Bible in any sense of the word, as more than sixty copies are known. In fact, we had two copies of it at one time in our New York vault, both of which were illuminated with grotesque birds and beasts, probably by the same artist. It is odd that, although there are few collections of incunabula in South America, there are two copies of this Bible in the National Library at Rio de Janeiro.

Probably the greatest sport of all is the collecting of Bibles in manuscript. It takes a king’s ransom to-day to secure a really fine one. I do not mean the ordinary late-fifteenth-century ones, which are quite common, but those executed from the ninth to the twelfth century, especially when they are illustrated. Of course, the earliest codices, the very foundation stones of the history of the Bible, such as the Codex Vaticanus in Rome, the Alexandrinus in the British Museum, and the Sinaiticus at Leningrad, are safely beyond the purse of the richest collector. The Pierpont Morgan Library contains the finest collection of illuminated Bibles in America. The vault at 33 East Thirty-sixth Street, New York, is an achievement almost unequaled in the history of collecting. It is like a view of Paradise. The latest acquisition by Mr. J. P. Morgan of some of the Holkham manuscripts from the library of the Earl of Leicester is a notable triumph in the history of great libraries.

Some years ago I was talking with Mr. Henry E. Huntington in his old library at 2 East Fifty-seventh Street, New York. I said most humbly, although with proper pride, “How would you like to own the original Conqueror Bible of the architect of the Tower of London?”

“There ain’t no sich animile,” quoted Mr. Huntington.

I thereupon produced from a cavernous Gladstone bag two large folio volumes, elegantly bound in blue morocco. “This is it,” I said. The Bible was written in the eleventh century for Gundulph, 1024-1108, Bishop of Rochester, who came over with William the Conqueror and later became the designer of the Tower of London. On the first leaf of each volume the bishop had written an elaborate curse, excommunicating anyone who should destroy, mutilate, or carry it off. When I showed Mr. Huntington these fatal words, he said to me, with a twinkle in his eye, “You old rogue, this applies to you, too, you know. I will take the Bible, but without the curse!”

I recall one day several years ago when I visited the library of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. His grandson, Mr. T. FitzRoy Fenwick, and I were looking over the precious volumes, and we talked of Sir Thomas’s ardent love of manuscripts. For more than fifty years he had been the world’s greatest gatherer of everything written by the hand of man. His knowledge was equal to his love, and he succeeded in forming an unrivaled library of manuscripts, which included some of the greatest specimens in existence. He did not confine himself to Continental examples alone, but was the first great collector of manuscripts relating to America. Sir Thomas Phillipps was the patron not only of Lord Kingsborough, whose researches on Mexico are well known, but of George Catlin, who depicted so graphically the life of the American Indian. Mr. Fenwick, who inherited from his grandfather his appreciation and love of fine things, and who possesses an almost unequaled knowledge of old manuscripts, asked me if I had ever seen a manuscript containing Anglo-Saxon writing. I said that I had not, and he thereupon produced the Four Gospels, an English manuscript written in West Anglia in the time of King Alfred, A.D. 850-900, which contained splendid full-page illustrations of an unusual type. There upon the margins were characters in Anglo-Saxon, written long before the Conqueror came to the shores of Britain.

Nothing, however, surprises me at Thirlestaine House. One day Mr. Fenwick showed me the Liesborn Gospels, a superb manuscript made in the ninth century for King Widekind, the only successful opponent of Charlemagne. It was in its old binding of carved wood, and is one of the few very early manuscripts in existence giving the name of the scribe who wrote it.

He also showed to me the famous French Historiated Bible of the fourteenth century, in two magnificent volumes, which contained almost a hundred illustrations, quite in the modern manner, more like William Blake than an artist of old Touraine. I now have these three precious Biblical manuscripts, and I doubt whether there is a nobler assemblage in existence.

To my mind the most inspiringly beautiful and important early Hebrew manuscript of the Bible is that in the remarkable collection of Mr. David Sassoon, of London. It should be reproduced in facsimile so that all students here and abroad might study not only its unique text but its glorious illustrations as well.

One of the great discoveries in the history of these early Bibles occurred right here at our place in New York, seven years ago. Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell, the great student of manuscripts, called upon me, and I showed him six pictures from the Bible and said that they were by a Spanish artist of the thirteenth century.

He looked at them for a moment and said, “No, they’re English!” I could scarcely believe him, although no one knows more about manuscripts than he. “Let me take them to my hotel and study them. I think they are the work of the earliest known English illuminator, W. de Brailes.”

He took them with him. If they were English they would be immensely valuable--worth far more than I, old Captain Kidd, asked for them. You bet I awaited anxiously his return.

Finally he showed up one day, and said, “The only trouble with you, Doctor Rosenbach, is that you do not use the eyes God gave you.” Lo and behold, he pointed to the halo on one of the saints, and there in neat characters were the magic words: “W. de Brail(es) me f(e)cit.” It was one of the greatest attributions ever made by a scholar, and they were, now beyond even the shadow of a doubt, the work of the very artist he had named. According to Mr. Eric G. Millar: “There has never been a more triumphant vindication of connoisseurship.” These six drawings are now in England in the collection of Mr. A. Chester Beatty, who has one of the choicest libraries of Oriental and European manuscripts. Every year when I go to England I renew, through the kind offices of Mr. Beatty, my acquaintance with the spirit of that doughty old illuminator, W. de Brailes.

Very few forgers have had the courage to try their hands at duplicating Biblical manuscripts. I have always been amazed at the enormous amount of self-confidence a man by the name of Shapira must have had when he offered the British Museum several important-looking manuscript scrolls. They contained the text of the Pentateuch, and were, he claimed, from the very hands of Moses! Of course, every expert and noted scholar who happened to be in London at the time went to see these scrolls, which were placed on exhibition at the Museum. They were scrutinized carefully, admired as works of curiosity, but no one believed for a moment that they were genuine. Any Semitic scholar knows perfectly well that writing for literary purposes was unknown at the time of Moses. Yet even though Shapira had used an alphabet belonging to a much later period in history, his handiwork was decidedly interesting. Finally he was informed that his offerings were considered a fraud. He left England bitterly disappointed and went to Belgium. Not long after he arrived there the continental newspapers announced that Shapira had committed suicide. Even then, when certain of his victims read the lines, they wrote to the papers protesting that the man could not be dead, and openly accused him of fabrication even in connection with his own demise. Such is fame!

The most interesting experiments in the history of pictorial art were the attempts to produce picture books for the use of the middle and lower classes of Europe in the fifteenth century, most of whom could not read. The few specimens of the Block Books, as they are called, extant to-day, indicate they were made up of single leaves printed on one side of the paper only. These blocks were all cut by hand from a slab of hardwood, such as that of the pear or apple tree. When the impressions were finally made, the pages were pasted back to back and bound in rough parchment. It is believed by some authorities that the earliest Block Books date from 1440, although others were undoubtedly printed fifteen to thirty years later.

The _Biblia Pauperum_, or the Bible for the Poor, is one of the most interesting examples among the block books. It is composed almost entirely of crude illustrations with doses of text or short explanations and sayings of the Prophets above and below the pictures, much in the manner of the tabloids of our own time. No attempt was made to reproduce the whole Bible or even a complete chapter. It was the portions familiarly known to the people which were set down. Thus the story of St. John--“Apocalypsis S. Joannis”--was one of the favorite subjects, as was Solomon’s “Song of Songs.”

Block books are, of course, among the most desirable and the most difficult to obtain of all the treasures of the bibliophile. Even a single sheet torn from a block book is valuable. I recall vividly, when in England many years ago, my first visit to an old library which contained four perfect block books, all in magnificent condition. The margins were uncut and, in fact, they appeared to be exactly the same as when they left the hands of the unknown printer in the fifteenth century. Year after year I returned to this library especially to see them. Imagine my satisfaction and joy when I was finally rewarded by the owner, who had decided to part with them.

There are only three great collections of block books in this country. One may be seen at the New York Public Library; another, also in New York, in the library founded by the late J. Pierpont Morgan; and the third in the Huntington Library in California.

The very first type-printed book with illustrations was a Latin edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, printed by Albrecht Pfister, of Bamberg, in 1461. There are only two copies known: one in the John Rylands Memorial Library at Manchester, England; the other in the French National Library at Paris.

Savonarola, the Billy Sunday of his day, was quick to see the appeal of block books. He had his own sermons printed and illustrated with woodblock-printed pictures, which he distributed among his followers. It was he who drew the masses to religion at the time when Florentine art was almost at its peak. He converted Botticelli, caused him to destroy all the sensuous secular pictures he painted previous to his conversion, but happily made up for his loss by inspiring him to paint religious subjects. What would I not give to possess the charred remains of the Bible to which Savonarola clung when he died!

There is perhaps a greater lack of knowledge concerning old Bibles than of any other subject pertaining to books. To make matters worse, most people believe they have accumulated many worthwhile facts when all they pick up is some chance misinformation. At least thirty per cent of the 30,000 letters I receive annually are about Bibles or other religious works, which, according to my correspondents, “have always been in the family.” The largest number of letters come from Germany. But among people of all nationalities the hoary idea still prevails that age adds value to a Bible. Some people who are not interested in any book, old or otherwise, become excited the moment they find a Bible more than fifty years old. Clasping it to the family bosom, they often rush to my library, either in New York or Philadelphia, buoyed up by an inflated notion of their treasure’s value, believing they have sighted a rainbow with a pot of real gold at the end.

Almost everyone in the world owns or has owned a Bible. It is the one work which has been translated into every language; it is the world’s best seller, and because of this, edition after edition has appeared in every country. No one knows how many millions of pounds the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have received to date in the revenue which has always flowed into their coffers as a perquisite on printed Bibles. The Bible rests beside one’s bed to-day in hotel rooms throughout the country. The Gideons’ Bible is the only volume the stealing of which is considered a virtue instead of a crime! The Bible is a book which has touched the hearts of us all at one time or another. When it does not appeal as a religious work its fascination is felt in the inexhaustible fund of stories and anecdotes which have never been matched by the contents of any secular book ever written. Such tales as those of Joseph and his brethren, David and Goliath, Solomon and the two mothers, will never be excelled.