[156] He died on the 24th of May, 1828; on the completion of his 85th year.
See the next note but one.
[157] The reader may be amused with the following testy note of my vigilant translator, M. c.r.a.pelet: the very Sir Fretful Plagiary of the minor tribe of French critics! "Cette phrase, qui n"est pas Francaise, est ainsi rapportee par l"auteur. M. l"Abbe Betencourt, aura dit a peu pres: "Il mourra sans laisser d"eleve." M. Dibdin qui parle et entend fort bien le Francais, EST IL EXCUSABLE DE FAIRE MAL PARLER UN ACADEMICIEN FRANcAIS, et surtout de rendre vicieuses presque toutes les phrases qu"il veut citer textuellement? L"exact.i.tude!
l"exact.i.tude! C"est la premiere vertu du bibliographe; on ne saurait trop le repeter a M. Dibdin." c.r.a.pELET. vol. iv. 124. Quaere tamen?
Ought not M. c.r.a.pelet to have said "il mourrira?" The sense implies the future tense: But ... how inexpiable the offence of making a French Academician speak bad French!!--as if every reader of common sense would not have given _me_, rather than the _Abbe Betencourt_, credit for this bad speaking?
[158] [In a short, and pleasing, memoir of him, in the _Revue Encyclopedique, 115th livraison, p. 277, &c._ it is well and pleasantly observed, that, "such was his abstraction from all surrounding objects and pa.s.sing events, he could tell you who was Bishop of such a diocese, and who was Lord of such a fief, in the XIIth century, much more readily, and with greater chance of being correct, than he would, who was the living Minister of the Interior, or who was the then Prefect of the department of the Seine?" By the kindness of a common friend, I have it in my power to subjoin a fac-simile of the autograph of this venerable Departed:]
[Autograph]
[159] The _Thucydides_ was published first; in twelve volumes 8vo.
VOL. II. 1807; with various readings, for the first time, from thirteen MSS. not before submitted to the public eye. The French version, in four volumes, with the critical notes of the Editor, may be had separately. The VELLUM 4to. copy of the Thucydides consists of fourteen volumes; but as the volumes are less bulky than those of the Xenophon, they may be reduced to seven. The _Xenophon_ was published in 1809, in seven volumes, 4to. The Latin version is that of Leunclavius; the French version and critical notes are those of M.
Gail. The vellum copy, above alluded to, is divided into ten volumes; the tenth being an Atlas of fifty-four maps. Some of these volumes are very bulky from the thickness of the vellum.
Upon this unique copy, M. Gail submitted to me, in writing, the following remarks. "Of the Xenophon, two vellum copies were printed; but of these, one was sent to the father of the present King of Spain, and received by him in an incomplete state--as the Spanish Amba.s.sador told M. Gail: only six volumes having reached the place of their destination. The Editor undertakes to give authenticated attestations of this fact." "If," say M. Gail"s written observations, "one considers that each sheet of vellum, consisting of eight pages, cost five francs ten sous, and three more francs in working off--and that skins of vellum were frequently obliged to be had from foreign countries, owing to the dearth of them at Paris--whereby the most extravagant demands were sometimes obliged to be complied with--add to which, that fifteen years have pa.s.sed away since these sums were paid down in hard cash,--the amount of the original expenses is doubled."
The volumes are in stout boards, and preserved in cases. In one of his letters to me, respecting the sale of his vellum copy--the worthy Professor thus pleasantly remarks: "Je ne veux pas m"enricher avec ce livre qui, lorsque je serai cendres, aura un bien grand prix. Je n"ai que le desir de me debarra.s.ser d"une richesse qui m"est a charge, et ne convient nullement a un modeste et obscur particulier, comme moi."
I subjoin the autograph of this worthy and learned Professor: hoping yet to shake the hand heartily which guided the pen.
[Autograph]
[160] M. Millin DIED about the middle of the following month, ere I had reached Vienna. His library was sold by auction in May 1819, under the superintendence of Messrs. Debure, who compiled the sale catalogue. It produced 53,626 francs. The catalogue contained 2556 articles or numbers; of which several were very long sets. One article alone, no.
866., consisted of 326 volumes in folio, quarto, and octavo. It is thus designated, "RECUEIL DE PIECES SUR LES ARTS, LA LITTE"RATURE, LES ANTIQUITE"S, _en Latin, en Italien, et en Francois_. This article produced 4501 francs, and was purchased by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Millin had brought up from boyhood, and rescued from poverty and obscurity, a lad of the name of _Mention_. This lad lived with him many years, in the capacity of a valet and private secretary. In his second and last voyage to Italy, Millin declined taking him with him, but left him at home, in his house, with a salary of fifty francs per month. Five months after his departure, in February, 1812, a great quant.i.ty of smoke was seen issuing from the windows of Millin"s apartments. Several people rushed into the room. They found the drawings and loose papers taken from the portfolios, rolled up lightly, and the room on fire at the four corners! A lighted candle was placed in the middle of the room. Suspicion immediately fell upon Mention. They ran to his bed chamber: found the door fastened: burst it open--and saw the wretched valet weltering in his blood ... yet holding, in his-right hand, the razor with which he had cut his throat! He was entirely dead. Millin"s collection of Letters from his numerous Correspondents perished in the flames.
This accident, which also deprived Millin of a fund of valuable materials that he was preparing for a _Dictionary of the Fine Arts_, and for a _Recueil de Pieces gravees Inedites_--might have also had an infinitely more fatal tendency: as it occurred _within_ the walls which contain the ROYAL LIBRARY! Millin received the news of this misfortune, in Italy, with uncommon fort.i.tude and resignation. But this second voyage, as has been already intimated, (see p. 260) hastened his dissolution. He planned and executed infinitely too much; and never thoroughly recovered the consequent state of exhaustion of body and mind. As he found his end approaching, he is reported to have said--"I should like to have lived longer, in order to have done more good--but G.o.d"s will be done! I have lived fifty-nine years, the happiest of men--and should I not be ungrateful towards Providence, if I complained of its decrees?!" And when still nearer his latter moments--he exclaimed: "I have always lived, and I die, a Frenchman: hating no one: complaining only of those who r.e.t.a.r.d the cause of reason and truth. I have never, intentionally, hurt a single creature.
If I have injured any one, I ask pardon of him for the error of my understanding." He died on the 18th of August, and his body was interred in the churchyard of Pere la Chaise. His old friend and colleague, M. GAIL, p.r.o.nounced a funeral discourse over his grave--in which, as may be well supposed, his feelings were most acutely excited. I subjoin a facsimile of Millin"s autograph: from the richly furnished collection of Mr. Upcott, of the London Inst.i.tution.
[Autograph: A.L. Millin]
[161] [Mons. Langles survived the above account between five and six years; dying January 28, 1824. His Library was sold by auction in March, 1825. It was copious and highly creditable to his memory. From the source whence the preceding autograph was derived, I subjoin the following autograph.
[Autograph: L Langles]
[162] Monsieur Millin had been before hand in his description of this day"s festival, but his description was in prose. It appeared in the _Annales Encyclopediques_, for the ensuing month, July, 1818, and was preceded by a slight historical sketch of the Club, taken chiefly from the Bibliographical Decameron. His account of the festival may amuse some of my readers, who have not been accustomed to peruse _English toasts_ cloathed in French language. It is briefly thus:
"Pendant que les membres du Roxburghe Club celebroient le 17 juin 1818 la memoire des premiers imprimeurs de Boccace, a Venise et en Angleterre, sous la presidence de sa grace lord Spencer; M. Dibdin, vice-president, s"unissoit a ce banquet bibliographique par une repet.i.tion qu"il en faisoit a Paris. Il avoit appele a ce banquet M.
DENON, a qui la France doit encore une grande partie des ma.n.u.scrits et des editions rares dont elle s"est enrichie, et plusieurs conservateurs de la bibliotheque royale, MM. VANPRAET, LANGLE"S, GAIL, et MILLIN. On pense bien que l"histoire litteraire, la bibliographie, devinrent un inepuisable sujet pour la conversation. L"entretien offrit un melange de gate et de gravite qui convient aux banquets des muses; et selon l"adage antique, les convives etoient plus que trois et moins que neuf. M. Gail lut sur cette reunion des vers latins, dont les toasts bruyans ne permirent pas de savourer d"abord tout le sel et l"esprit. Ils doivent etre imprimes dans _l"Hermes Roma.n.u.s_.
"M.D., amphitryon et president du festin, porta, comme il convenoit, les premiers toasts:
1. A la sante de milord Spencer et des honorables membres du Roxburghe Club. 2. A la memoire de Christophe Valdarfer, inprimeur du Boccace de 1471; livre dont l"acquisition fait par le duc de Marlborough, fut l"occasion de la fondation du Roxburghe Club. 3. A la memoire immortelle de Guillaume Caxton, premier imprimeur anglois.
4. A la gloire de la France. 5. A l"union perpetuelle de la France et de l"Angleterre. 6. A la prosperite de la bibliotheque royale de France. 7. A la sante de ses dignes conservateurs, dont le savoir est inepuisable, et dont l"obligeance ne se la.s.se jamais. 8. A la propagation des sciences, des arts, des lettres, et de la bibliomanie.
9. Au desir de se revoir le meme jour chaque annee.
"Les convives ont rendu ces toasts par un autre qu"ils ont porte, avec les hurras et les trois fois d"usage en Angleterre, au vice-president du Roxburghe-Club, qui leur avoit fait l"honneur de les ra.s.sembler.
"La Seance a fini a l"heure ou le president du Roxburghe-Club leve celle de Londres; et le vice-president, M. Dibdin, a soigneus.e.m.e.nt reuni les bouchons, pour les porter en Angleterre comme un signe commemoratif de cet agreable banquet."[E]
The verses of Monsieur Gail were as follow:--but I should premise that he recited them with zest and animation.
Auspice jam Phaebo, SPENCEROQUE AUSPICE, vestrum Illa renascentis celebravit gaudia lucis Concilium, stupuit quondam qua talibus emptus Boccacius cunctorum animis, miratus honores Ipse suos, atque ipsa superbiit umbra triumpho.
Magna quidem lux illa, omni lux tempore digna.
Cui redivivus honos et gloria longa supersit _Atque utinam ex vobis unus, vestraeque fuissem_ Laet.i.tiae comes, et doctae conviva _trapezae_.
Sed nune invitorque epulis, interque volentes Gallus Apollinea sedeo quasi lege Britannos.
Arridet D***: habet nos una voluptas.
Me quoque librorum meministis amore teneri, Atque virum studiis, quos Gallia jactat alumnos: Nam si _Caxtonio_ felix nunc Anglia gaudet, Non minus ipsa etiam _Stephanorum_ nomina laudat.
Hic nonnulla manent priscae vestigia famae.
n.o.bis Thucydides, Xenophon quoque pumice et auro, Quem poliit non parca ma.n.u.s; felicior ille Si possit ...[F] melius conjungere Musas!
[Greek: Koina ta panta philon] perhibent: at semper amici Quidquid doctorum est: tantis ego laetor amicis.
aeternum haec vigeat concordia pocula firment Artesque et libri, quae nectant foedera reges, Utramque et socient simul omnia vincula gentem.
CECINIT JOAN. B. GAIL,
Lector regius in biblioth. regia codd. gr. et lat. praefectus.
While one of the London morning newspapers (which shall be here nameless) chose to convert this harmless scene of festive mirth into a coa.r.s.e and contemptible attack upon its author, the well-bred Bibliomanes of Paris viewed it with a different feeling, and drew from it a more rational inference. It was supposed, by several gentlemen of education and fortune, that a RIVAL SOCIETY might be established among themselves--partaking in some degree of the nature of that of the ROXBURGHE, although necessarily regulated by a few different laws.
Taking the regulations of the ROXBURGHE CLUB (as laid down in the _Ninth Day_ of the _Decameron_) as the basis, they put together a code of laws for the regulation of a similar Society which they chose, very aptly, to call LES BIBLIOPHILES. Behold then, under a new name, a _Parisian Roxburghe Society_. When I visited Paris, in the summer, of 1819, I got speedily introduced to the leading Members of the club, and obtained, from M. DURAND DE LANcON, (one of the most devoted and most efficient of the members) that information--which is here submitted to the public: from a persuasion that it cannot be deemed wholly uninteresting, or out of order, even by the most violent enemies of the _cause_." The _object_ of this Society of the BIBLIOPHILES must be expressed in the proper language of the country.
It is "_pour nourrir, relever, et faire naitre meme la pa.s.sion de la_ _Bibliomanie_." I put it to the conscience of the most sober-minded observer of men and things--if any earthly object can be more orthodox and legitimate? The Society meet, as a corporate body, twice in the year: once in April, the second time in December; and date the foundation of their Club from the 1st of January 1820. Whatever they print, bears the general t.i.tle of "_Melanges_;"[G] but whether this word will be executed in the black-letter, lower-case, or in roman capitals, is not yet determined upon. One or two things, however, at starting, cannot fail to be premised; and indeed has been already observed upon--as a species of _heresy_. The Society a.s.semble to a "dejeune a la fourchette," about twelve o"clock: instead of to a "seven o"clock dinner," as do the London Roxburghers: whereby their const.i.tutions and pockets are less affected. The other thing, to observe upon, is, that they do not print (and publish among themselves) such very strange, and out-of-the way productions, as do the London Roxburghers. For truly, of _some_ of the latter, it may be said with the anonymous poet in the _Adversaria_ of Barthius,
Verum haec nee puer edidici, nee tradita patre Accepi, nee Aristotelis de moribus umquam Librum, aut divini Platonis dogmata legi.
_Edit. Fabri_. 1624, col. 345, vol. i.
And why is it thus? Because these reprints are occasionally taken (quoting Caspar Barthius himself, in the xxth chapter of his iid book of Adversaria, _Edit. Ead_.) "ex libro egregie obscuro et a blattis tineisque fere confecto." But, on the other hand, they are perfectly harmless:
Sweet without soure, and honny without gall:
as Spenser observes in his _Colin Clout"s come home again: edit._ 1595: sign. E.F. Or, as is observed in _Les Ill.u.s.trations de France, edit_. 1513, 4to. litt. goth.:
Le dedens nest, ne trop cler, ne trop brun, Mais delectable a veoir...comme il me semble. _Sign. Cii. rev_.
A genuine disciple of the Roxburghe Club will always exclaim "delectable a veoir" let the contents of the book be "cler," or "brun." Nor will such enthusiastic Member allow of the epithets of "hodg-podge, gallimaufry, rhapsody," &c. which are to be found in the "Transdentals General," of Bishop Wilkins"s famous "_Essay towards a real character and a philosophical language:"_ edit. 1668, fol. p.
28--as applicable to his beloved reprints! I annex the names of the Members of the Societe des Bibliophiles, as that club was first established.
1. Le Marquis de Chateaugiron, _President_. 2. Guilbert de Pixerecours, _Secretaire_. 3. Le Chevalier Walckenaer, _Membre de l"Inst.i.tut, Tresorier._ 4. Alph. de Malartic, _Maitre des Requetes._ 5. Durand de Lancon. 6. Edouard de Chabrol. 7. Berard, _Maitre des Requetes_. 8. Le Vcte. de Morel-Vinde, _Pair de France._ 9. Madame la d.u.c.h.esse de Raguse, (_par courtoisie_.) 10. Pensier. 11. Comte Juste de Noailles. 12. Le Baron Hely d"Oisel, _Conseiller d"etat._ 13. Le Marquis Scipion du Nocere, _Officier Superieur du Garde du Corps_. 14.
Hippolyte de la Porte. 15. De Monmerque, _Conseiller a la Cour Royale_. 16. Coulon, _a Lyon._ 17. Le Duc de Crussol. 18. Le Comte d"Ourches, _a Nancy._ 19. Le Chevalier Langles, _Membre de l"Inst.i.tut._ 20. Duriez, _a Lille._ 21. Le Marquis Germain Garnier, _Pair de France_. 22. Monsieur le Chevalier Artaud, _Secretaire d"
Amba.s.s. a Rome_.
It remains to conclude this, I fear unconscionably long, note, as the above letter is concluded, with the mention of ANOTHER BANQUET. This banquet was given by the Bibliophiles to the n.o.bLE PRESIDENT of the Roxburghe Club, when the latter was at Paris in the Spring of the year 1820. The Vice-President of the Roxburghe Club, who happened at the same time to be at Paris, also received the honour of an invitation.
The festival took place at _Beauvilliers"_, the modern Apicius of Parisian restorateurs. About twelve guests sat down to table. The Marquis de Chateaugiron was in the chair. They a.s.sembled at six, and separated at half-past nine. All that refinement and luxury could produce, was produced on the occasion. Champagnes of different tints, and of different qualities--_lively_ like M. Langles, or _still_ like Monsieur ****; fish, dressed as they dress it a la Rocher de Cancale-- poultry, and pastry--varied in form, and piquant in taste--but better, and more palatable than either, conversation--well regulated and instructive--mingled with the most respectful attention to the ILl.u.s.tRIOUS GUEST for whom the banquet had been prepared--gave a charm and a "joyaunce" to the character of that festival--which will not be easily effaced from the tablets of the narrator"s memory. Where all shine pretty equally, it seems invidious to particularise. Yet I may be allowed to notice the hearty urbanity of the Marquis, the thorough good humour and bibliomaniacal experience of the Comte d"Ourches, (who, ever and anon, would talk about an edition of _Virgil"s Pastorals printed by Eggesteyn_) the vivacious sallies of the Chevalier Langles, the keen yet circ.u.mspect remarks of the Comte Noailles, the vigilant attention and toast-stirring propensities of M.D. de Lancon, the _Elzevirian_ enthusiasm of M. Berard, the ... But enough ... "Claudite jam rivos pueri--sat prata biberunt."
[E] These Corks are yet (1829) in my possession: preserved in an old wooden box, with ribs of iron, of the time of Louis XI.
[F] The word here in the original is not clear.
[G] [They have now published FOUR VOLUMES, in royal 8vo. of singular beauty and splendour: but the fourth vol. falls far short of its precursors in the intrinsic value of its contents. The first volume is so scarce, as to have brought 20. at a sale in Paris. I possess the three latter vols. only, by the kindness of the Society, in making me, with Earl Spencer, an Honorary a.s.sociate.]