Chapter V: Part 5

In binding, then, as in the other Bookish Arts, Anglo-Saxondom has no need to be ashamed of its record, while, if we look to the work of the present day, there is good reason to hope that our part in the future may be a still worthier one.

THE FIRST ENGLISH BOOK SALE[18]

There are many points in the history of books and of book-collecting which are still tantalisingly obscure. How little we know about the prices of early books, the cost of printing, the relations of printer and publisher or of publisher and author! With the exception of a few royal personages and a few men and women of great wealth and rank, the book-collectors of the two centuries which succeeded the invention of printing are hardly known to us, even by name. A few have gained immortality among book-lovers by clothing their books in priceless bindings; others, like Sir Thomas Bodley, have won a nobler renown by founding libraries in which students should have free access to their treasures. But of the rank and file of the early collectors, the men who bought books not by the cartload, but with individual thought and care, according to the length of purses easily exhaustible--of these for two centuries we know little or nothing. If it had not been for an indiscreet pamphlet published by an English theologian in Holland, our ignorance about English book-collectors might have lasted indefinitely longer. But during his brief stay in his native land the pamphleteer introduced into this country the custom of selling by auction the books of dead collectors, and from the year 1676, when this practice was first adopted, our knowledge about English libraries becomes abundant.

[18] From 'Longman's Magazine,' by leave of the publishers.

It is not a little curious in itself that we should be able to say with precision that at nine o'clock of the morning, on October 31, 1676, at the house of Dr. Lazarus Seaman, in Warwick Court, Warwick Lane, began the first book auction that ever took place in England. But we can do much more than this. The little world of book-collectors was immensely taken with this new method of book-buying. The catalogues of the first auctions soon came to be regarded as curiosities, and the price fetched by each lot was carefully recorded. The auctioneers were no less interested. They wrote prefaces to the catalogue of each sale, giving us their reasons for the various auction rules, which soon came to assume a form closely similar to those now in use at Sotheby's or Puttick and Simpson's. Moreover, at the end of ten years Thomas Cooper, the leading auctioneer of the time, printed an exact list of the seventy-three sales which had taken place since the introduction of the practice into England, and eleven years later another famous member of the fraternity wrote the following letter, which has recently been acquired by the British Museum, and supplies us with the one link which was needed to complete our chain of information on the subject.

The letter forms part of the 'Dering Correspondence,' which stretches from the reign of James the First to that of George the Second (Stowe ms. 709). It has the double endorsement: (i) 'Mr. Millington, the noted auctioneer, to Mr. Jos. Hill,' and (ii) 'Millington's letter acknowledginge the usefulnesse of sellinge Libraryes by Auction.' Here is the text of the part which now concerns us:--

'Lond. June 25, 1697.

'Reverend S^r,

'I have designd severall Times to wait of _sic_ you when in England
to present my service and tender my thanks for your great _Service
done to Learning & Learned men in your first advising & effectually
setting on foot that admirable & universally approved of way of
selling Librarys by Auction amongst us_. A son of a worthy ffreind
of mine, being now in Rotterdam in order to get some Employment
there, offering me the Conveyance of mine to your hand, I presume
of your Candour to receive my acknowledgements and gratefull
Resentments for the knowledge I have got and the benefit I have
received by their management, having for severall yeares
strenuously Pursued what you, sire, happily _Introduced the
Practice of into England_. I Design you some Catalogues of the
Library of D^r Edward Bernard, late Astronomy Professor in Oxford,
in which you will find Curious Manuscripts, Libri Impressi collati
cum Codicibus MSS., etc'

The letter proceeds to enlarge at some length on Dr. Bernard's books, the best part of which, by the way, had been presented to the Bodleian, and then, with an apology for the writer's presumption in addressing Dr. Hill, is duly signed, 'Your obliged humble servant, D. Millington.' It tells us, it will be observed, with the aid of the emphatic underscoring here represented by italics, that it was Dr. Hill who had 'first advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries by auction amongst us,' and we can see exactly how he came to start the practice.

Joseph Hill was one of the most earnest and the most moderate of the seventeenth-century Presbyterians. His father, Joshua, is said to have died a few minutes before the archbishop's apparitor arrived to cite him for not wearing a surplice; but though the objection to Church discipline was thus hereditary, it does not seem to have been intensified in Joseph. A distinguished career at Cambridge was closed by his refusal to take the oath enjoined by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and the University authorities 'cut his name out of the books in kindness to him,' to prevent his being formally ejected from his offices. Hill took refuge at Leyden, and was soon appointed to the charge of the Scottish Church at Middleburg in Zeeland. But though a refugee, he remained English at heart, and in 1672 wrote a pamphlet, entitled 'The Interest of these United Provinces, being a Defence of the Zeelander's Choice.' It will be remembered that by the secret Treaty of Dover, concluded between Charles II. and the French king in 1670, Charles was to aid Louis against the Dutch, and receive as part of his reward the province of Zeeland. The French invasion took place in 1672, and it was at this crisis that Hill wrote his pamphlet, which contains a defence of the English king. Though completed on November 30, 1672, it did not appear till April of the next year, when the author at last obtained a publisher, though at the cost of no less a sum than one hundred pounds. In the following August he was ordered to leave Zeeland till the war was over, and on returning to England was rewarded by Charles with a pension of £80, and the offer of a bishopric as the price of his conformity. The offer was declined, and in 1678 Hill returned to Holland, accepting a post at Rotterdam, where we find him when the grateful Millington wrote his letter of acknowledgment in 1695, and where he died in 1707.

When Hill came over to receive the reward of his patriotism in England, he would naturally have revived his acquaintance with an old Cambridge don, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, with whom he had many tastes in common. Seaman had been Master of Peterhouse and Vice-Chancellor of the University. He had written pamphlets endeavouring to keep the Presbyterians in the Church by minimising the importance of episcopal orders, and was just on the right side of the line which shut Hill out from the proffered bishopric. Both were book collectors, both were classical scholars, and when Seaman died during Hill's stay in London, we may be quite sure that Hill was among his mourners.

Seaman's funeral was no small affair. Two broadsides of not wholly despicable verse are still extant to attest his popularity. One is entitled 'An Elegie to the endeared Memory of that Learned and Reverend Minister of the Gospel, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, who died on Friday, the 3rd of September, 1675, and was carried from Drapers' Hall to be interred, with a numerous train of Christian friends bewailing his Death.' The other broadside, which contains the better verse, is more simply inscribed 'An Elegy on the Reverend and Learned Divine, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, sometime Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Master of Peterhouse, and late Minister of the Gospel in All Hallows, Bread Street.' Even of this, however, the first six lines may suffice as a specimen:

'What! Seaman dead! and did no blazing star,
No comet béforehand his Death declare?
What, Merlin, not a word of this in thee?
Lilly's but half a prophet now I see:
For had he known it, he'd have quickly said,
This year Presbýtery shall lose its head.'

In no less conceited a vein, but more successful, is the proposed epitaph, the last line of which is really an inspiration:

'Reader, if that thou learned art
O do not urge me to impart
What 'tis I cover; for I fear
Thou'lt be so eager to lie here,
And wish thy life might straight expire.
Then ask no more, but away go
And send th' unlearned, they may know.
I'll tell none else, for here does lie
Entomb'd a University.'

Thus was the worthy doctor bewailed and buried, and soon his executors were busy realising his effects. What was to be done with his five or six thousand books? He had bequeathed them to no library, and to sell them to the booksellers was to give them away. It was here, then, that Dr. Hill stepped in and 'advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries by auction,' which had long been the practice in Holland, but as yet was quite unknown in this country. The arrangements were soon made, and a catalogue duly printed, for whose title-page no less learned a language than Latin would serve, though we regret to have to note that the worthy William Cooper who compiled it was a sufficiently poor scholar to head one of his sections 'Bibliae Variae,' as if 'Biblia' were a feminine singular of the first declension. The Latin of the title-page is of a kind which every one can read, so that for the sake of completeness we quote it as it stands:--

'Catalogus variorum & insignium librorum instructissimæ bibliothecæ
clarissimi doctissimiq; viri Lazari Seaman, S.T.D., quorum Auctio
habebitur Londoni in ædibus Defuncti in Area & Viculo Warwicensi,
Octobris ultimo. Cura Gulielmi Cooper Bibliopolæ.'

Probably under Dr. Hill's guidance Cooper also drew up the following preface, the rules given in which, as we have already noted, are the progenitors of those still in use in the present day, in which, indeed, some of their actual phrases may be found enshrined.

'To the Reader.

'Reader,

'It hath not been usual here in _England_ to make sales of Books
by way of _Auction_, or _who will give most for them_: But it
having been practised in other Countreys to the Advantage both of
Buyers and Sellers; It was therefore conceived (for the
encouragement of Learning) to publish the Sale of these Books, this
manner of way; and it is hoped that this will not be unacceptable
to Schollers; and therefore we thought it convenient to give an
Advertisement concerning the manner of proceeding therein.

'_First_, That having this Catalogue of the Books, and their
Editions under their several Heads and Numbers, it will be more
easie for any Person of Quality, Gentlemen, or others, to Depute
any one to Buy such Books for them as they shall desire, if their
occasions will not permit them to be present at the Auction
themselves.

'_Secondly_, That those which bid most are the Buyers; and if any
manifest differences should arise, that then the same book or books
shall be forthwith exposed again to Sale, and the highest bidder to
have the same.

'_Thirdly_, That all the Books according to the Catalogue are (for
so much as we know) perfect, and sold as such; But if any of them
appear to be otherwise before they be taken away, the Buyer shall
have his choice of taking or leaving the same.

'_Fourthly_, That the money for the Books bought, be paid at the
delivery of them, within one Month's time after the Auction is
ended.

'_Fifthly_, That the Auction will begin the 31st of October at the
Deceased Dr.'s House in Warwick Court in Warwick lane, punctually
at Nine of the Clock in the Morning, and Two in the Afternoon, and
this to continue daily until all the Books be sold; Wherefore it is
desired that the Gentlemen, or those Deputed by them, may be there
precisely at the Hours appointed, lest they should miss the
opportunity of Buying these Books, which either themselves or their
Friends desire.'

In subsequent auctions these rules were repeated, with but slight alterations and the addition of a 'Lastly' to the effect that

'If any Gentleman have a desire to view or see any or all of these
Books in this Catalogue, or to satisfie themselves in the
Conditions and Editions of any of them, they shall be very Welcome
to the place aforenamed at any time before the day that the Sale
begins.'

To facilitate this inspection subsequent sales were held, not at the deceased collector's house, but at some more convenient place, that from which this rule is quoted, Kidner's sale (February 6, 1677), taking place 'at the sign of the King's head in Little Britain,' possibly a tavern, but more probably the name of the bookseller's shop. It is to Dr. Seaman's house, however, in Warwick Court, that we must take our way at nine o'clock on the morning of October 31, 1676, if we wish to be present at the first English book sale. We shall have Cooper's catalogue in our hands, and note that he has inaugurated the practice, which still makes auction catalogues as difficult to consult as a Bradshaw, of dividing according to their sizes books in folio, in quarto, in octavo, and in duodecimo. He further divides each size of books according to their subjects: 'Patres Graeci,' 'Patres Latini,' 'Biblia,' 'Libri Theologici,' 'Theologi Scholastici,' 'Scriptores in Scripturam,' etc., so that we have no little difficulty in finding out if the particular books of which we are in want are included in the good Doctor's library. As we enter the house we probably find it very full. There are friends of Dr. Seaman's anxious for his books to sell well; poor Divinity students hopeful of picking up a few volumes cheaply; professed book-collectors, who care little for theology, but have an eye on some of the classics, and are curious to see how this new departure will succeed; and a little knot of booksellers, also curious, but on the whole unfriendly. Will. Cooper ascends an impromptu rostrum, an assistant hands up a long set of the works of S. Chrysostom, in Greek and Latin (Paris, 1636), and the bidding begins. If any invocation would persuade the Muse of Learning to tell us 'who first, who last upraised his voice to bid,' that invocation should duly be made. But in the absence of documents the Muse usually abandons us severely to our own imagination, and we are left to wonder whether it was friend, or poor student, or rich collector who made the first bid at the first English book auction. Probably it was one of the last class who secured the prize, for the great Chrysostom fetched no less than £8, 5s., nearly a quarter's income for some of the poorer clergy of those days. This was the highest price fetched by any book in the sale, but its immediate successors were all respectable. A set of the records of General and Provincial Councils (Paris, 1636) fetched £5, 3s.; the works of S. Cyril (Paris, 1638), £5, 1s.; of Theodoret (1642), £4, 8s., and of Epiphanius (1622), £3, 2s. 6d. Thus the first five lots produced twenty-six pounds all but sixpence, and it may greatly be doubted whether, despite the smaller purchasing power of money in these days, they would fetch as much as this if put up to auction at any of our modern sales.

The next twenty books averaged something over a pound apiece, and the prices languished till this division of the sale was over, and the 'Patres Graeci' were succeeded by the 'Patres Latini,' the works of S. Augustine (Froben's edition, 1569) heading the list at £5, 15s. Among the editions of the Bible, 'Bibliae variae,' as the auctioneer called them, the London Polyglot of 1657 was _facile princeps_, fetching no less than £8, 2s., or within three shillings of the top price of the sale. Rabbinical literature was the next division taken, and here it is curious to note that no single work fetched as much as a sovereign. Then came long rows of classics and theology, with nothing to call for remark till we come to the books of English divinity, among which Fox's 'Martyrs' (London, 1641) fetched as much as £3, 5s. Among the English philologists, a very miscellaneous section, Raleigh's 'History of the World' went for £1, 6s., and Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' (Oxford, 1638) for 6s. Even the latter was not much of a bargain, for it is the first edition (1621), the one in quarto, which is now so highly prized.

When the folios were all sold, the smaller sizes were taken in their order, but either the collectors of the seventeenth century (very unlike in this to their modern successors) valued a book in proportion to its bulk, or else the novelty of the bidding was exhausted. Certainly we have no more high prices to record, and the auctioneer, after a time, had recourse to selling books in bundles or batches. The Oriental works went badly, probably because few could read them; the English divinity, which were sold ten and twenty together, at from a florin to fifteen shillings the lot, even worse, because Dr. Seaman's theology was now discountenanced by Churchmen, and the pockets of the Dissenters were ill furnished. We note a few pearls among these dusty tomes. Fletcher's 'Purple Island' (1633) was sold with six dull tracts for 5s., and Bacon's 'Advancement of Learning' (1605) for 1s. The pamphlets of the Civil War went fairly well, but a collection, which would now be held priceless, of thirty-two tracts on the relation of England and Spain from 1585 to 1591 realised no more than 8s.

The total sum gained by the sale is stated as about £700, a result which I have not had the industry to check by adding together the prices of all the different lots. My impression is that it is rather an under-estimate. Taking it as correct, we may guess the average sum realised by each book as about 3s., for there are 137 pages in the Catalogue, and from 35 to 40 books catalogued on each page, or a total of somewhere about 5,000. A scholar's library, especially a theological scholar's, always sells badly--unless I am mistaken, Bishop Thirwall's books only averaged about 2s. each--and Dr. Seaman's executors probably congratulated themselves on the result of this new method of disposing of old books. They had realised more than could possibly have been obtained on an enforced sale to a single bookseller, and on the other hand, after the ardour of competition for the first few lots had subsided, buyers were able to make bargains which the booksellers would never have allowed them. Every one, save the booksellers, was pleased, and both the general satisfaction and the one discordant note which marred it, are reflected in the preface which the auctioneer wrote for the second book sale, which took place some four months after the first. Here he says:

'The first Attempt in this kind (by the Sale of Dr. _Seaman's_
Library) having given great Content and Satisfaction to the
Gentlemen who were the Buyers, and no great Discouragement to the
Sellers, hath Encouraged the making this second Trial, by the
exposing (to _Auction_ or _Sale_) the Library of Mr. _Tho. Kidner_,
in hopes of receiving such Encouragement from the Learned as may
prevent the Stifling of this manner of Sale, the Benefit (if
rightly considered) being equally Balanced between Buyer and
Seller.'

There was a danger, we see, of this manner of sale being 'stifled,' and subsequent prefaces show us that the danger came from reports spread by the retail booksellers that the bidding was not always genuine. To meet these reports the auctioneers for a long time refused to accept commissions to bid themselves, lest they should be accused of bidding when there was no commission behind them, merely to run up prices against genuine purchasers. A new rule was also passed, obliging strangers from the country either to pay for and remove books as soon as they were knocked down to them, or else to bid through citizens of reputation, 'and this is the rather desired that all suspicions may be removed of any Strangers appearing there to bid and enhance the Price to others without ever intending to send for what they so buy themselves.'

Fenced round with these regulations, the institution of selling books by auction grew and flourished, so that, as we have said, at the end of the first ten years of its existence no fewer than seventy-three such auctions had taken place. It has certainly made book-collecting a more exciting and more picturesque practice than it could otherwise have been, and enables us not only to reconstruct the library of any famous collector, but often to trace the history of a particular book in a very pleasant and interesting manner. Thus the copy of Dr. Seaman's Catalogue and the two Elegies on his death, at which we have been looking, all once belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, the author of 'Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs,' 1678-1714. According to the crabbed notes of the antiquary Hearne, whom he had offended by refusing to lend him books, Luttrell was not only a book-collector but a miser, who would not have given the judges and other dignitaries who attended his funeral (in 1732) 'a meal's meat' while he was alive. But he was 'well-known for his curious library, especially for the number and scarcity of [books on] English history and antiquities, which he collected in a lucky hour at very reasonable rates.' After Luttrell's death, his copy of Seaman's Catalogue passed into the collection of the antiquary Gough, and then into that of the celebrated Richard Heber, perhaps the greatest of all English book-collectors. At Heber's sale it was acquired by the British Museum, and its literary pedigree thereby closed. But the possession of such a pedigree adds very greatly to the interest of a book in the eyes of book-lovers, and so far as the institution of sales by auction has increased our knowledge of the book-collectors of the past, we have every reason to be grateful to Dr. Joseph Hill who, to return to our text, 'first advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries.'

JOHN DURIE'S 'REFORMED LIBRARIE-KEEPER'[19]

[19] From 'The Library,' by leave of the editor.

From time to time attention has been called to the letter in which John Durie put together, for the first time in England, a series of suggestions on the duties of a Librarian, but, so far as I am aware, Durie's letter has never been reprinted in full, and I propose here to preface it with a few notes on the author's own career as a librarian, for which the Calendars of State Papers offer some materials. Of Durie's long life--he was born in 1596 and did not die till 1680--we need concern ourselves with only a very few months. As we shall see, his employer Whitelock asserts that he was a German, but this is a mistake, for he was born in Edinburgh, although the persecuted life of his father, Robert Durie, caused him to be educated abroad, chiefly at Sedan. From an early period he devoted himself to the cause of religious unity among the Protestant Churches of Europe, and in this cause he laboured all his life, possibly with more zeal than wisdom. When he found how hardly religious unity was to be achieved he was ready, we are told, to regard the acceptance of the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments as the sole requirement for intercommunion. In the seventeenth century this certainly amounted to latitudinarianism, and it is not easy to acquit Durie of a disposition to run both with hare and hounds, which did not escape the observation of his contemporaries. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was a Royalist and acted for some time as Chaplain to the Princess Mary of Orange at the Hague. But he wearied of this employment, returned to England, served the Commonwealth, both as librarian and as literary hack in offices peculiarly distasteful to the Royalists, and yet after the Restoration did not fail to endeavour to explain away his defection. A political comprehensiveness such as this may perhaps explain the reason why, despite his journeyings all over the north of Europe, Durie's efforts after religious unity so signally failed to attract theologians of any party. The believers in black and the believers in white will hardly admire the man who adopts grey as the only wear, and endeavours to make it serve for each in turn.

The excellence of Durie's treatise on library-management speaks for itself, but it seems not altogether unlikely that it was composed for the special purpose of the author's advancement. It is prefaced by a short letter by Samuel Hartlib, the friend of Milton, and Durie, as we shall see, shortly afterwards was employed to translate Milton's 'Eiconoclastes' into French. On August 5, 1650 (the year in which the 'Reformed Librarie-Keeper' was published), Durie had been granted liberty by the Council of State, to which Milton was Latin Secretary, to abide in the Commonwealth, and on August 21 this grant was confirmed by warrant 'granting license to Mr. Durie to stay in England till further order, on security for good behaviour.' Now some weeks before this the Council of State had taken into consideration what should be done with the Royal Collections of books, manuscripts, and medals, and had resolved to appoint Whitelocke their keeper, and to allow him the services of an Assistant. If Durie's 'Reformed Librarie-Keeper' was written at this juncture, at the suggestion of Milton and Hartlib in order to forward his claims to the Assistant-ship, it was certainly very well timed, and it is not unlikely that this was actually the case. Whitelocke's account of the matter, under date July 30, 1650, is as follows:

'July 30. Referred to the Council of State to preserve the books
and medals at St. James's from imbezzlement.

'After this Order past, the Council propounded it to me, whether I
would take upon me the Charge and Care of these precious Medals and
Books, and to be the Library-Keeper, and to appoint whom I thought
fit to look to them under me.

'I knew the greatness of the charge, and considered the prejudice
that might fall out, by being responsible for those rich jewels,
the imbezzlement whereof would be attempted by many, and my other
occupations would not permit me to give much personal attendance on
this business, nor to enjoy much of the delight of perusing them.

'Yet I, being informed of a design in some to have them sold and
transported beyond sea, which I thought would be a dishonour and a
damage to our nation, and to all scholars therein, and fearing that
in other hands they might be more subject to imbezzleing, and being
willing to preserve them for publick use, I did accept of the
trouble of being Library-Keeper at St. James's and therein was
encouraged and much persuaded to it by Mr. Selden, who swore that
if I did not undertake the charge of them--all those rare Monuments
of Antiquity, those choice Books and Manuscripts would be lost, and
there were not the like to them, except only in the Vatican, in any
other Library in Christendom.

'The Council made an order for me to be Library-Keeper of St.
James's and to have lodgings in the house belonging to the place,
and recommended to me Mr. Duery, a German by birth, a good scholar,
and a great traveller and friend to the Parliament, to be my Deputy
in that place, but at my liking.

'I was willing to have a Deputy by their recommendation, being
thereby I should be the less answerable, and I appointed Mr. Duery
to have the keys, to go to Mr. Patrick Young the former
Library-Keeper to the late King, to inquire for an inventory of the
Books and Medals, and to see an exact one made forthwith of all of
them.'--'Whitelocke's Memorials,' p. 416.

Whitelocke's narrative, though under date July 30, of course embraces also the events of the subsequent months. As the following entries from the Calendar of State Papers for 1560 will show, Durie did not receive his appointment till the following October:

'Oct. 28.--24. John Durie appointed Library-Keeper of the books at
St. James's, as also of the medals, and to have the lodgings
belonging to that place, and to make an inventory of the books,
medals and MSS., and present it to Council.

'Oct. 29.--1. Mr. Dury to be Library-Keeper at St. James's House,
and Col. Berkstead to appoint convenient lodgings for him.

'Nov. 7.--2. The new chapel of St. James's to be used as a library,
and Mr. Durie to take care that the books and medals be removed
there as soon as it is finished.

'Nov. 21.--12. Lord Commissioner Lisle, Sir Hen. Vane, and Mr.
Challoner added to the Committee formerly appointed for the
library--viz., Lord Commissioner Whitelock, Visct. Lisle, and Sir
Gilbert Pickering; Mr. Dury, the Library-Keeper, is to apply to
them upon all emergencies, and receive instructions for the safe
preservation of the library and medals, and to prepare directions
to be given to the surveyor of the works for fitting the new chapel
for the use of a library.'

We hear no more of Durie till May 20th, 1651, when the Council of State ordered him 'to proceed in translating Mr. Milton's book, written in answer to the King's book, and Mr. Frost to give him such fit reward for his pains as he shall think fit.' In the following October we have this interesting entry, which shows that he was by no means neglectful of his duties:

'Oct. [6?]--56. John Dury, Library-Keeper at St. James's, to the
Council of State. The books and manuscripts will be utterly
spoiled if not immediately looked after, as they lie upon the floor
in confused heaps, so that not only the rain and dust, but the
rats, mice, and other vermin can easily get at them, and none of
these inconveniences can be prevented, unless you order the
trustees for sale of the late King's goods to deliver me the keys.

'The trustees long since made a catalogue of the books, and an
inventory of the medals, so that there is nothing more left for
them to do, and they might therefore be also desired to deliver up
such catalogues and inventory; if there should be anything to
complete, I am willing to assist them therein, so that the work may
not linger, and the library be utterly spoiled, and remain useless
to the public.' [One page.]

This is the last entry we have concerning Durie as a librarian. His translation (published in 1652) of 'Mr. Milton's book written in answer to the late King's book,' _i.e._ 'Eiconoclastes,' was brought to a completion, and there is an Order in Council that no custom duty should be charged upon its export. Then we have Durie's petition for his fee for the translation, and then he goes off to Sweden with Whitelocke, his rooms at St. James's are assigned to another, and our interest in him sensibly wanes.

The title-page of Durie's tiny pamphlet runs as follows:--'The | Reformed | Librarie-Keeper | with a supplement to the | Reformed School, | as subordinate to Colleges in | Universities. | By | John Durie | whereunto is added | I. An idea of Mathematicks. II. The description of one of the chiefest | Libraries which is in Germanie, erected | and ordered by one of the most Learned | Princes in Europe. | London | Printed by William Du-Gard, and are | to bee sold by Robert Littleberrie at the | sign of the Unicorn in Little | Britain. 1650.'

The supplement to the Reformed School comes first, and our tract is preceded by a false title of its own:--'The | Reformed | Librarie-Keeper. | By | John Durie | [Device of Fleur-de-Lys.] London | Printed by William Du-Gard, | Anno Dom. 1650.' The two letters are preceded by Hartlib's preface, and followed by the two appendices mentioned on the title-page, neither of which, in all likelihood, is by Durie himself. Of the two letters only the first is here reprinted, the second being a mere feeble repetition of it clothed in religious phraseology. The one here given is to some extent marred by Durie's riding to death of the metaphor of 'trading' for exchange of information. Despite this fault, it is full of excellent sense, and shows throughout a lofty sense of the functions of a librarian. I reprint it here as it stands, with a careful retention of the original spelling and punctuation:--

THE

REFORMED LIBRARIE-KEEPER:

OR

_Two Copies of Letters concerning the Place and Office of a
Librarie-Keeper._

THE FIRST LETTER.

'The Librarie-Keeper's place and office, in most countries (as most
other Places and Offices both in Churches and Universities) are
lookt upon, as Places of profit and gain, and so accordingly sought
after and valued in that regard; and not in regard of the service,
which is to bee don by them unto the Common-wealth of Israël, for
the advancement of Pietie and Learning; for the most part men look
after the maintenance, and livelihood settled upon their Places,
more then upon the end and usefulness of their emploiments; they
seek themselves and not the Publick therein, and so they
subordinate all the advantages of their places, to purchase mainly
two things thereby viz. an easie subsistence; and som credit in
comparison of others; nor is the last much regarded, if the first
may bee had; except it bee in cases of strife and debate, wherein
men are over-heated: for then indeed som will stand upon the point
of Honor, to the hazard of their temporal profits; but to speak in
particular of Librarie-Keepers, in most Universities that I know;
nay indeed in all, their places are but Mercenarie, and their
emploiment of little or no use further, then to look to the books
committed to their custodie, that they may not bee lost or
embezeled by those that use them, and this is all. I have been
informed that in Oxford (where the most famous Librarie now extant
amongst the Protestant Christians is kept), the settled maintenance
of the Librarie-Keeper is not above fiftie or sixtie pound _per
annum_; but that it is accidentally, _viis et modis_ sometimes
worth an hundred pound: what the accidents are, and the waies by
which they com, I have not been curious to search after; but I have
thought, that if the proper emploiments of Librarie-Keepers were
taken into consideration as they are, or may bee made useful to the
advancement of Learning; and were ordered and mainteined
proportionally to the ends, which ought to bee intended thereby;
they would bee of exceeding great use to all sorts of Scholars, and
have an universal influence upon all the parts of Learning, to
produce and propagate the same unto perfection. For if
Librarie-Keepers did understand themselves in the nature of their
work, and would make themselves, as they ought to bee, useful in
their places in a publick waie; they ought to becom Agents for the
advancement of universal Learning: and to this effect I could wish,
that their places might not bee made, as eueriewhere they are,
Mercenarie, but rather Honorarie; and that with the competent
allowance of two hundred pounds a year, som emploiments should bee
put upon them further then a bare keeping of the books. It is true
that a fair Librarie, is not onely an ornament and credit to the
place where it is; but an useful commoditie by itself to the
publick; yet in effect it is no more then a dead Bodie as now it is
constituted, in comparison of what it might bee, if it were
animated with a publick spirit to keep and use it, and ordered as
it might bee for public service. For if such an allowance were
settled upon the emploiment as might maintain a man of parts and
generous thoughts, then a condition might bee annexed to the
bestowing of the Place; that none should be called thereunto but
such as had approved themselves zealous and profitable in som
publick waies of Learning to advance the same, or that should bee
bound to certain tasks to bee prosecuted towards that end, whereof
a List might bee made, and the waie to trie their abilities in
prosecuting the same should be described, least in after times,
unprofitable men creep into the place, to frustrate the publick of
the benefit intended by the Doners towards posteritie. The proper
charge then of the Honorarie Librarie-Keeper in an Universitie
should bee thought upon, and the end of that Imploiment, in my
conception, is to keep the publick stock of Learning, which is in
Books and Manuscripts, to increas it, and to propose it to others
in the waie which may bee most useful unto all; his work then is to
bee a Factor and Trader for helps to Learning, and a Treasurer to
keep them, and a dispenser to applie them to use, or to see them
well used, or at least not abused; and to do all this, first a
_Catalogue_, of the Treasurie committed unto his charge is to bee
made, that is all the Books and Manuscripts, according to the
Titles whereunto they belong, are to bee ranked in an order most
easie and obvious to bee found, which I think is that of Sciences
and Languages; when first all the Books are divided into their
_subjectam materiam_ whereof they Treat, and then everie kinde of
matter subdivided into their several Languages; and as the
Catalogue should bee so made, that it may alwaies bee augmented as
the stock doth increas; so the place in the Librarie must bee left
open for the increas of the number of Books in their proper Seats,
and in the Printed Catalogue, a Reference is to bee made to the
place where the Books are to bee found in their Shelvs or
repository. When the stock is thus known and fitted to bee exposed
to the view of the Learned World, then the waie of Trading with it,
both at home and abroad, is to bee laid to heart both for the
increas of the stock, and for the improvement of it to use. For the
increas of the stock both at home and abroad, correspondencie
should bee held with those that are eminent in everie Science, to
Trade with them for their profit, that what they want and wee have,
they may receiv upon condition, that what they have and wee want,
they should impart in that facultie wherein their eminence doth
lie; as for such as are at home eminent in anie kinde, becaus they
may com by Native right to have use of the Librarie-Treasure, they
are to be Traded withal in another waie, viz. that the things which
are gained from abroad, which as yet are not made common, and put
to publick use should bee promised and imparted to them for the
increas of their private stock of knowledge, to the end that what
they have peculiar, may also bee given in for a requital, so that
the particularities of gifts at home and abroad, are to meet as in
a Center in the hand of the Librarie-Keeper, and hee is to Trade
with the one by the other, to caus them to multiplie the publick
stock, whereof hee is a Treasurer and Factor.

'Thus hee should Trade with those that are at home and abroad out
of the Universitie, and with those that are within the Universitie,
hee should have acquaintance to know all that are of anie parts,
and how their view of Learning doth lie, to supplie helps unto them
in their faculties from without and from within the Nation, to put
them upon the keeping of correspondencie with men of their own
strain, for the beating out of matters not yet elaborated in
Sciences; so that they may bee as his Assistants and subordinate
Factors in his Trade and in their own for gaining of knowledg: Now
because in all publick Agencies, it is fit that som inspection
should bee had over those that are intrusted therewith, therefore
in this Factorie and Trade for the increas of Learning, som tie
should bee upon those Librarie-Keepers to oblige them to
carefulness.

'I would then upon this account have an Order made that once in the
year the Librarie-Keeper should bee bound to give an Account of his
Trading, and of his Profit in his Trade (as in all humane Trades
Factors ought, and use to do to their principals at least once a
year), and to this effect I would have it ordered, that the chief
Doctors of each facultie of the Universitie should meet at a
Convenient time in a week of the year to receive the Accounts of
his Trading, that hee may shew them wherein the stock of Learning
hath been increased for that year's space; and then he is to
produce the particulars which he hath gained from abroad, and laie
them before them all, that everie one in his own facultie may
declare in the presence of others that which hee thinketh fit to
bee added to the publick stock, and made common by the Catalogue of
Additionals, which everie year within the Universities is to be
published in writing within the Librarie itself, and everie three
years (or sooner as the number of Additionals may bee great, or
later, if it bee smal) to be put in Print and made common to those
that are abroad. And at this giving up of the accounts, as the
Doctors are to declare what they think worthie to bee added to the
common stock of Learning, each in their Facultie; so I would have
them see what the Charges and Pains are whereat the Librarie Keeper
hath been, that for his encouragement the extraordinarie expences
in correspondencies and transcriptions for the publick good may
bee allowed him out of some Revenues, which should be set apart to
that effect, and disposed of according to their joint consent and
judgment in that matter. Here then hee should bee bound to shew
them the Lists of his correspondents, the Letters from them in
Answer to his, and the reckoning of his extraordinarie expence
should bee allowed him in that which hee is indebted, or hath
freely laid out to procure Rarities into the stock of Learning. And
becaus I understand that all the Book-Printers or Stationers of the
Common-wealth are bound of everie Book which is Printed to send a
Copie into the Universitie Librarie; and it is impossible for one
man to read all the Books in all Faculties, to judg of them what
worth there is in them; nor hath everie one Abilitie to judg of all
kinde of Sciences what everie Author doth handle, and how
sufficiently; therefore I would have at this time of giving
accounts the Librarie-Keeper also bound to produce the Catalogue of
all the Books sent unto the Universitie's Librarie by the
Stationers that Printed them; to the end that everie one of the
Doctors in their own Faculties should declare, whether or no they
should bee added, and where they should bee placed in the Catalogue
of Additionals; for I do not think that all Books and Treatises,
which in this age are Printed in all kindes, should bee inserted
into the Catalogue, and added to the stock of the Librarie,
discretion must be used and confusion avoided, and a cours taken to
distinguish that which is profitable from that which is useless,
and according to the verdict of that Societie, the usefulness of
Books for the publick is to bee determined; yet because there is
seldom anie Books wherein there is not somthing useful, and Books
freely given are not to bee cast away, but may bee kept; therefore
I would have a peculiar place appointed for such Books as shall bee
laid aside to keep them in, and a Catalogue of their Titles made
Alphabetically in reference to the Author's name with a note of
distinction to shew the Science to which they are to bee referred.
These thoughts com thus suddenly into my head, which in due time
may bee more fully described, if need bee, chiefly if, upon the
ground of this account, som competencie should bee found out and
allowed to maintein such charges as will bee requisite towards the
advancement of the Publick good of Learning after this manner.'

WOODCUTS IN ENGLISH PLAYS PRINTED BEFORE 1660[20]

[20] From 'The Library,' by leave of the editor, and Messrs. Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co.

When loaves are lacking it seems natural to attach a high value to crumbs, and perhaps this may be accepted as an excuse for printing the following rough notes on the few woodcuts which I have been able to find in editions of English plays printed before 1660. An excuse is needed, because, while the artistic value of the cuts is distinctly low, the plays in which they are found, with the exception of Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus,' are not of the first interest. On the other hand, as I hope to show, the woodcuts, as a rule, are not merely fancy pictures used only because they looked pretty. They are real illustrations, drawn by men who had certainly read the plays themselves, and in all probability had seen them. To have had, say, the play-scene from 'Hamlet' drawn, however rudely, as a title-cut by a contemporary artist would have been a very pleasant addition to our scanty sources of knowledge as to the appearance of the actors and the stage when Shakespeare's plays were first acted, and, though it is less interesting plays which have come down to us embellished with illustrated title-pages, we may as well take note of what fortune has given us.

Two at least of the old morality plays, 'Every Man' and 'Hyckscorner,' are prefaced with cuts, to some of which the names of the characters are attached on labels, so that we may be sure of their identity. Unfortunately most of these little figures are poor copies of those used in a French translation of 'Terence,' published by Antoine Vérard. In 'Hyckscorner' Wynkyn de Worde went farther. To fill up a gap on his title-page he inserts a picture of an elephant with a howdah on his back. I have read 'Hyckscorner' once, ten years ago, and I hope never to have to read it again. But if my memory serves me, there is nothing about an elephant in it, and this particular elephant agrees so closely with one used by John of Doesborgh to illustrate a tract about Prester John's country that I am afraid he was one of Wynkyn de Worde's job lots. Clearly these earliest cuts throw no light on the contemporary stage.

The title-cut of 'The pleasant and stately morall of the Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London,' printed by 'R. Ihones' in 1590, is of more interest. If I am right in my interpretation of it, it relates not to the play itself, but to a performance of any morality in a private hall. On the right is a philosophical-looking person with a wand in his hand, whom I take to be the 'Doctor' or 'Expositor,' who used to interpret to the audience the meaning of the old miracle plays and moralities. On the left is a man in ordinary dress of the sixteenth century, apparently an actor. Both these are turning their faces to a group of ladies seated on a dais, presumably as spectators. The picture is thus taken from the rear of the actors, and illustrates, though in rather a dull and conventional manner, the performances of a much earlier period than 1590. This is in keeping with the play itself, the 'statelie morall' being a curious hybrid, half morality, half play, the publication of which at a date when Shakespeare and Marlowe were already writing for the stage was a curious anomaly.

Three other sixteenth-century plays, Marlowe's 'Faustus,' Greene's 'Friar Bacon' and 'Hieronimo,' were issued with title-cuts, but not, I believe, in the sixteenth century. The edition of 'The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus. Written by Chr. Mar.,' which I have found thus illustrated is that 'printed for John Wright, and to be sold at his shop without Newgate at the sign of the Bible, 1616.' Unfortunately the cut is larger than the page of text, and in the copies both of this and of later editions, to which I have had access, has been cropped by the binder's shears beyond any possibility of reproduction. It shows Faustus, looking rather like some of the least flattering portraits of Archbishop Laud, standing in a magic circle, wand in hand, with the devil he has raised squatting before him on his haunches like a ferocious black poodle.

As in the case of 'Dr. Faustus,' it is difficult to find an uncropped copy of 'The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay. As it was lately plaid by the Prince Palatine his servants. Made by Robert Greene, Master of Arts. (London, Printed by Elizabeth Allde dwelling neere Christ-Church. 1630.)' In the copy accessible to me only about three-fourths of the title-page have escaped the horrid shears; but this suffices to show that we have here one of the few variations from the dramatist's text of which these illustrators have to be accused. Bacon, when weariness compels him to leave to his servant the task of watching the Brazen Head, chides him for slowness in answering his call. 'Think you,' is the answer, 'that the watching of the Brazen Head craves no furniture? I warrant you, sir, I have so armed myself that if all your devils do come I will not fear them an inch.' Unluckily the artist has dressed the servant not as a fighter, but as a bandsman, with drum and a kind of fife, and no visible arms. But the Brazen Head is there, and Bacon very fast asleep, while the labels issuing from the Head's mouth, 'Time was,' 'Time is,' 'Time is Past,' show that the text of the play had been read, though not very carefully.

The illustration to 'Hieronimo' here shown is taken from the edition whose title runs: 'The Spanish Tragedie, containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Belimperia: with the pittiful death of old Hieronimo. (London, Printed by Augustine Mathewes, and are to bee sold by Iohn Grismand at his shop in Pauls Alley.)' The original cut is very 'mealy' (a characteristic quite successfully reproduced in the accompanying facsimile of it), and the design has not many artistic merits; but in point of faithfulness it is probably all that could be desired. It will be remembered that as Horatio and Belimperia are toying in an arbour in Hieronimo's garden, the lady hears footsteps. 'Lorenzo, Balthazar, Cerberim, and Pedringano enter, disguised.' Lorenzo, the jealous brother, bids his minions 'Quickly despatch, my Masters,' and according to the stage direction, 'they hang him in the Arbour' (_i.e._, Horatio, not Lorenzo), and, despite Belimperia's entreaties, stab him to death.

'Murder, murder, help, Hieronimo, help!' cries Belimperia, as in the picture, and though at Lorenzo's bidding, 'Come stop her mouth; away with her,' she is dragged off, the old man hears. The stage direction, 'Enter Hieronimo in his shirt,' has been interpreted liberally, for Hieronimo has nether garments in addition; but he is duly coatless and provided with a torch with which to see the 'murdrous spectacle.'

'_Hier._ What outcry calls me from my naked bed,
And chills my throbbing heart with trembling fear,
Which never danger yet could daunt before?
Who calls Hieronimo? speak, here I am.
I did not slumber; therefore 'twas no dream.
No, no; it was some woman cried for help.
And here within the garden did she cry,
And in this garden must I rescue her.
But stay, what murdrous spectacle is this?
A man hang'd up, and all the Murderers gone;
And in my Bower, to lay the guilt on me?
This place was made for pleasure, not for death:
[_He cuts him down._
These garments that he wears I oft have seen:
Alas, it is Horatio, my sweet son!'----