Even where an English collection may not enter the Continental lines, but preserves its national character, there are numerous cla.s.ses of books of foreign origin and from foreign presses, which are fairly ent.i.tled to consideration and admittance. These publications embrace not merely religious and controversial literature, but a large and important body of material for English and Scotish biography and history, and for the elucidation of Irish affairs. Every season brings to light some new features in this immense series, which is, of course, susceptible of a cla.s.sifying process, and may be ranged under such sections as we have above indicated, besides a considerable residue which falls under the head of poetry and typography, the latter const.i.tuting a branch of the History of English Printing, and the former being worthy of notice as embracing some of the rarest metrical productions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which owed their issue from presses in Germany and the Low Countries to various agencies, but chiefly to the exigencies of foreign military service by English and Scotish officers during the English operations in the Netherlands under Elizabeth and during the Thirty Years" War.
The foreign sources of English books, or books written by or about English, Scotish, and Irish folk, have been--
Aire Amsterdam Antwerp Arras Augsburg Basle Bologna Boulogne Breda Bruges Brussels Constantinople Dort Florence Flushing Geneva Ghent Gouda Haarlem Leipsic Leyden Lyons Malines Middelburg Milan Munich Munster Paris Parma Pisa Rome Rotterdam Strasburg-in-Elsa.s.s The Hague Tournai Utrecht Venice Vevey Wesel Zurich
It is always to be borne in mind that these adjuncts at the foot of t.i.tle-pages in troubled periods are not unfrequently fict.i.tious; and we have elsewhere equally shown that Greenwich and Waterford are names appended to early controversial works of which the writers desired to conceal the real parentage.
Of English presses it might seem almost superfluous to speak; but in fact the typographical fortunes of London have experienced their flux and reflux. At first we find the City itself in sole possession of the industry and privilege; then Westminster came; thirdly, Southwark. Of the provincial places of origin, Oxford appears to have been the foremost, and was followed at intervals by York, Cambridge, Canterbury, Ipswich, Worcester, and other centres, of which some preserved their reputation down to comparatively recent times, while Oxford and Cambridge of course remain important and busy seats of printing. Beverley, Nottingham, Derby, Northampton, Bristol, Birmingham, Gateshead, and Newcastle-on-Tyne have never been more than occasional sources of literary production, and certain towns, such as Lincoln and Gainsborough, are only known from local or small popular efforts; there is an edition of _Robin Hood"s Garland_ with the Gainsborough imprint. One or two publications purporting to have been executed at Sherborne in Dorsetshire belong to the firm of William Bowyer of London.
There was a distinct centralising tendency at a later period, by which the English metropolis absorbed the princ.i.p.al share of work, and it was followed, owing to economical causes, by a reaction which we know to be at present in full force, and which has restored to the provinces, but to new localities, Bungay, Guildford, Bristol, no less than Edinburgh and Aberdeen, an appreciable proportion of the custom of the London publishing houses; nor is it unusual to send MSS. abroad for the sake of the advantage accruing from cheaper labour. We not long since secured this boon in Scotland; but Scotland has grown as dear as London.
The SCOTISH SERIES is a difficult and costly one to handle. The early vernacular literature of that country has suffered from two cla.s.ses of destructive agency, neglect and fanaticism, to a greater extent than England, and the disappearance of the more popular books and tracts has been wholesale. The attempt on the part of a collector, however rich and persevering he might be, to form a complete series of original editions of the poetical and romantic writers of North Britain, could only be made in ignorance of the utter impossibility of success. The late David Laing abundantly ill.u.s.trated this fact in his numerous publications, and further evidence of it may be found throughout the bibliographical works of the present writer.
The old Scotish presses were Edinburgh, Leith, St. Andrew"s, Glasgow, Stirling, and Aberdeen; but a large proportion of the literary productions of Scotish authors, including much of the historical group relative to Mary Queen of Scots, proceeded from foreign places of origin, where the writers had settled or were temporarily resident.
The princ.i.p.al channels through which we have in modern times augmented our information of their products are the catalogues of Fraser of Lovat, Boswell of Auchinleck, the Duke of Roxburghe, Pitcairn, Constable, Chalmers, Maidment, Gibson-Craig, David Laing, and the Rev.
William Makellar, the last a cousin of Sir William Stirling Maxwell of Keir, and a collector from 1838 to 1898.
A purely IRISH LIBRARY would inherently differ both from one limited to English or to Scotish books. There is no early typography or poetry, no works printed on vellum, no masterpieces of binding. The collectors in that part of the empire have always been few in number, and in fact Irish books have been chiefly collected by persons who were not Irishmen, nor even residents in that country. It used to be the case that, where a book was remarkably successful in England, the Dublin booksellers reprinted it, and, as these reproductions are generally scarcer than the originals, doubtless in limited numbers.
The series consists of a handful of books and tracts of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods (1570-1625); of publications relative to the Civil War (1644-48); of others relative to the Commonwealth and Jacobite troubles (1650-90); of literary ill.u.s.trations of the state of Ireland under the Houses of Orange, Stuart, and Brunswick or Hanover, and of modern days. The bibliographical writings of Sir James Ware are usually quoted and consulted for the literature within his time, but they have become almost obsolete. The two other works of reference for amateurs and students are those by Charles Vallancey (_Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis_, 1786-1807, 7 vols.) and Charles O"Conor (_Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres_, 1814-26, 4 vols.).
But we have to go to more recent authorities to discover that the typographical productions of Ireland in the first decade of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries comprise a few books of the greatest rarity and one or two of which no copies are at present known. On the other hand, certain Elizabethan volumes, purporting to have proceeded from Irish presses, are generally believed to have an English origin, while others with German imprints of a later date (second half of the seventeenth century) are absolutely proved to have been clandestinely executed at home.
A very fair and comprehensive idea of the salient features in the present series may be gained from the Grenville and Huth catalogues and from Hazlitt"s _Collections_ (General Index). Considerable stress is laid by collectors on a large-paper copy with the _Decisions_ filled in in MS., the Memorandum, &c., of the _List of Claims_, 1701, in connection with the Irish forfeitures. But in fact a copy of this work is always available, when any one wants it, which is seldom enough.
There was no _regular_ printing here till the beginning of the seventeenth century, although one or two Marian tracts falsely purport to have come from the Waterford press. Dublin had a printer, John Frankton, who worked from 1601 to 1620 or thereabout, and produced many books, tracts, and broadsheets, some not yet recovered; the city also boasted a Society of Stationers in 1608, and many volumes appeared at London "Printed for the Partners of the Irish Stock,"
referring to the Plantation of Ulster. The places in Ireland itself, where the art of typography was pursued, were Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Drogheda, Kilkenny, and Belfast (as in the section just dismissed).
But the rarest articles in the earlier series emanated from London or from Continental presses, the writings of Nicholas French and Cranford"s _Tears of Ireland_, 1642, taking a prominent rank in the latter category.
The leading collectors on Irish lines have been Sir Robert Peel, Mr.
Grenville, Mr. Huth, Mr. Bradshaw, Canon Tierney, Mr. Shirley, and Bishop Daly.
In the English series I have supposed the admission of a certain number or proportion of foreign books, which are of catholic interest, and have acquired a standing among many cla.s.ses of collectors whose bias is princ.i.p.ally national. But there are two other series of very unequal extent, importance, and costliness, which more directly appeal to the buyers of these islands, namely, the earlier Anglo-American literature belonging to the Colonial period, and the American reproductions of the favourite books of Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Thackeray, and others in the present century. The latter category enters into the department of curiosities, and has yet to acquire bibliographical importance. In one or two cases, works issued at home in numbers have been published in the States in book-form prior to their appearance here. This happened with the _Yellow-Plush Correspondence_, reprinted direct from _Fraser"s Magazine_ at Philadelphia in 1838, and curious as the writer"s earliest separate publication. These papers were not collected in England till 1841.
The products of the Colonial period include all the books emanating from American presses between 1640, the date of the _Bay Psalm-Book_ at Cambridge, N.E., from the press of Stephen Day, and the Declaration of Independence. There has been a disposition to treat the whole of this output of printed matter with a special tenderness and reverence on political grounds; but it obviously is of a very mixed and unequal character, and, as time goes on, there must be a continuous winnowing process, and a consignment to oblivion of a vast a.s.sortment of the dullest theology and of political _ephemerides_. There will always remain a rich heirloom to our American kinsfolk and ourselves of historical nuggets in the shape of narratives of the fortunes and careers of the Pilgrim Fathers, their experiments in statecraft, their religious trials, their early superst.i.tions and strange intolerance of personal liberty in a land chosen by its settlers for liberty"s sake; and of course there is a section of literary products appertaining to the New World, namely, ritualistic ordinances, liturgical manuals, and collections of statutes, which derive what one is bound to term an artificial interest from the local circ.u.mstances, or, in other words, from the place of origin. A theological treatise, a Bible, a volume of prayers, or a law-book, published in England in the second half of the seventeenth century, may be worth from sixpence to a sovereign; if it bears the imprint of Boston, Cambridge (N.E.), New York, Philadelphia, or New London, its value may be computed in bank-notes. The _Laws of Ma.s.sachusetts_, 1660, was lately sold for 109, and the _Papers Relating to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay_, 1769, for 8, the latter in boards.
The reason (so far as there is any) for this inflation is twofold: the patriotic sentiment which leads American amateurs to desire the oldest and most precious typographical and historical monuments of their country, and, secondly, the perhaps less justifiable enthusiasm of some Englishmen for books which, as they may plead, are the offspring of the States while they were still English settlements. A copious and fairly contemporary view of the extensive family of works belonging to the earlier Anglo-American library may be found in the bibliographies of Stevens, Sabin, and Harrisse, and in the Grenville, Huth, Lenox, and Tower catalogues. There is not only no line of collecting which is more difficult and more costly than the present, but none which, within the last twenty years, has, so far as first-rate rarities are concerned, more seriously advanced, even inferior copies of certain books fetching at times five times as much as good ones did in the seventies. Just lately the call appears to come from the other side of the Atlantic. There are two or three new bidders. That is sufficient.
CHAPTER IX
The Modern Side--Words of advice--The place and functions of Free Libraries--Coleridge and Byron period--Unhealthy state of the market--The d.i.c.kens and Thackeray movement--Fashions in books--A valuable suggestion--Slight actual demand for costly modern productions--Two often make a market--Effect of time in settling value--Forecast of the durability of a few names--A large-paper copy of Byron"s poems, 1807--Cheap literature not a modern invention--The published price noted on the face of early volumes--An episode--Practical buyers not to be considered collectors--The first edition considered from editorial and other points of view.
IN the acquisition of modern books, far greater caution is requisite than in that of the older literature, since the output is so enormous, and the changes in taste and depreciation in value so rapid and so capricious. The Free and other Circulating or Reference Libraries throughout the country must prove of immense service in superseding the necessity of purchasing volumes of temporary interest or of expensive character; and the average collector will, and does, find that a certain number of dictionaries of various kinds, and of works which happen to be favourites, suffice to exhaust his s.p.a.ce and resources. The Free Library is an undoubted boon in two ways: in enabling us to read or consult books which we do not care to buy; and again, in affording us an opportunity at leisure of judging whether such and such a volume merits more than a pa.s.sing notice and perusal.
The sole method of arriving at this information is to take the publication home. Even where shelf-room and funds are forthcoming, there is slight danger of any large percentage of recent literature being added to the stores of a judicious householder. To read, perhaps only to skim, and return, will be the general rule.
It is inexpedient to lend oneself too exclusively to a period or a school; for even where one has to study for a purpose a particular cla.s.s of authors, or a particular subject or group of subjects, the local inst.i.tution is at hand to help one; and the cheap reproductions of the writings of the earlier centuries, erring, as they do, on the side of indulgence, place it in the power of individuals of modest means to have at their elbows a representative a.s.semblage, not necessarily a c.u.mbrous one, of the literature from Chaucer to the present day, so that they may form a comparative estimate of the intellectual activity and wealth of successive ages, while, at the same time, the Greek and Latin authors are procurable in a collective shape, if they desire to compare notes and satisfy themselves on the obligations of the moderns to the ancients.
It amounts to this, that the Free Library is an agency which should save us to a very material extent from actually acquiring books which are not worth holding; it is not only a medium for reference, but for testing and winnowing. But for the select private bookcase it is not, or ought not to be, a subst.i.tute.
The Free Library is in its infancy and on its trial. In course of time the spread of education and the force of experience will confer on it better governing bodies, and better governing bodies will guarantee better curators. The actual generation of librarians, or so-called librarians, is the product of inefficient committees of control and selection; and the worst part is that some of these gentlemen receive salaries which would almost enable their employers to secure the services of qualified officers.
I am not personally of the opinion that those inst.i.tutions are an unmixed blessing. For already there was a marked tendency to a decline in the taste for collecting among the middle cla.s.ses in the United Kingdom, available resources being devoted to other outlets more generally acceptable to families; and the facilities afforded by the Free Library virtually amount to each individual parishioner being enabled, without appreciable cost, to possess books on a far larger scale than if he had a collection actually his own. The unfavourable operation of this state of affairs is twofold: it injures the literary market, and it promotes superficiality of study in the case of books which should be owned, not borrowed, to be thoroughly mastered and understood.
The range of choice, which embraces the writers of the modern school in prose and verse, is both wide and difficult. During many years past the number of authors within these lines has been continually on the increase, yet, while merit and value may be questions of opinion, there can be no serious or legitimate doubt that the output of literary work of high character is not greater than it was, if indeed as great. In the course of a quarter of a century many popular names have either fallen or faded out of remembrance, alike of authors who belonged to antecedent generations, and of those who have enjoyed a transient and artificial celebrity, and have come and gone, as it were, under the eyes of their immediate contemporaries. With the advantages offered by lending libraries, it appears to be imprudent on the part of any one who cannot conveniently form an extensive collection of modern books to buy on the recommendation of the press or the trade new favourites; for literary acquisitions are unfortunately apt to occupy s.p.a.ce, and, save in very exceptional cases, to deteriorate in value. Even the original editions of the later works of Tennyson are not in great demand, and the high figures realised by one or two of his early productions are explainable in the same way as those given for Byrons and Sh.e.l.leys.
The Modern Side of collecting is cla.s.sifiable into numerous branches, according to the point of departure, as some differ in their view of what is modern from others. If we have to lay down a dividing line, however, we should make it comprehend the last decade of the eighteenth century, when many of the writers who were the contemporaries of our immediate foregoers began their literary careers.
Then, again, there are two branches of the later literature: the more recent writers themselves, and the reproductions, as I have noted, of the writers of former periods; and the extent to which the edited collections have been carried places it within the power of many who so desire to specialise on a certain line, and to deal representatively with the rest.
The specialist who proposes to himself as a field for his activity the Coleridge and Byron period, or who, again, confines his efforts to the writings of one or two of that set, has his work before him. Generally speaking, the first editions, which are those usually desired, are not uncommon; but there is almost always a _crux_, an _introuvable_, for which the not altogether blameable dealer puts on the screw, and charges more than for all the remaining items. Bohn"s _Lowndes_ yields a fair account of this family of literature; and Alexander Ireland, Richard Herne Shepherd, and others have bestowed vast pains on drawing up monographs on Coleridge, Hazlitt, Hunt, Sh.e.l.ley, Lamb, Keats, Browning, Tennyson, and the rest. It is difficult to foresee what the final upshot may be; probably, when fabulous prices have drawn forth from their hiding-places additional copies of many of these latter-day objects of keen pursuit, the market will fall and the craze will subside. It is a purely artificial and spurious one.
A second group, to whose books a collector may reasonably and conveniently confine his attention, consists of the poets and prose-writers who are still, or who were till lately, among us; and a fairly numerous body of matter falls within this cla.s.s, as we may judge from a glance at the names which present themselves in the publishers" and booksellers" lists. In selecting the contemporary school, there is the undoubted advantage that you can inst.i.tute a comparison between the book and its author, and that you may fall in with him at dinner, in a drawing-room or in a shop, and congratulate him or solicit an explanation of some fine but obscure pa.s.sage; and should you also be literary, he has the opportunity of exchanging compliments with you. The old dead writers receive praise and offer no equivalent.
During a series of years there was a notorious run, which, as usual, became indiscriminate, on first editions of the writings of d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, and other foremost men of the period, eclipsing, as it seemed, even the demand for the earlier English cla.s.sics, till the auctioneers and booksellers in their catalogues underlined at a venture every _editio princeps_, though it might be the last as well as the first, and, whether or no, a book of no mark. But the enthusiasm has at last contracted itself within narrower and more intelligent limits, and is restricted to productions which rank as masterpieces or are special favourites, and then all postulates have to be satisfied, all bibliographical minutiae have to be studied. It is impossible to foresee how far this latest compromise may last; but whatever it is, there must always be some novelty to keep the market going, and bring grist to the mill. The world of fashion comprehends books as well as bonnets and dresses; but the literary section is a humble one by comparison, and is in few hands. Every fresh _mode_ has somewhere its starter, and it usually prevails long enough to suit the purposes of the trade, when it makes way for its successor.
If one had the ordering of these strategical devices, one would imagine that the true policy was to buy up a given cla.s.s of books, procure the insertion of a clever article or two in the press, extolling their merits and lamenting the public ignorance and neglect, and then launch a Jesuitically constructed catalogue devoted to such undeservedly disregarded treasures. But we may have been forestalled.
Who knows?
The less current and every-day literary ware appeals to a more or less narrow const.i.tuency. There is a proverb, "The wool-seller knows the wool-buyer;" and it has to be so in books. There are volumes which, if they do not from their character or price suit one of a circle of half-a-dozen collectors, with whose means and wants the whole trade is generally familiar, are exceedingly likely to suit n.o.body outside the public libraries at public library prices. So much is this the case, that many booksellers do not think it worth their while to publish catalogues, and content themselves with reporting to the most probable purchaser fresh acquisitions. With certain very special and costly rarities _two_ often make a market.
Time will perform its habitual office or function for us and our successors of separating from the mult.i.tudinous acc.u.mulation of modern published or printed matter such portion as, on deliberate inquiry and scrutiny, appears to be of permanent value. There is no doubt that much will be thrown aside; but the _residuum_ which will bear the test of dispa.s.sionate judgment must prove considerable in itself, and also when taken into account as an appendix to the record left by preceding generations of writers. There may be certain authors and auth.o.r.esses whom our descendants will like to have by them, even though they may no longer exert a sensible influence on literature and thought, just as we prize many of the older schools and types for characteristics and allusions which strike us as curious or entertaining; and soon, as decade follows decade, and the twentieth century has well opened, men and women, who were our grandsires" contemporaries, will seem through the lengthening vista almost as remote as they were from the Stuart epoch with its Elizabethan and Shakespearian traditions.
It is useless and invidious to particularise, and, besides, when one has drawn up a list of names, which are more or less obviously ephemeral, one cannot be certain as to the rest. Some must live; some may.
The astonishing demand for the first editions of our modern poets and novelists has, as was generally antic.i.p.ated, subsided, and in some cases almost ceased; and it is extremely doubtful whether the taste will ever a.s.sume again the same unhealthy proportions. For one result of the matter has been to make it perfectly clear that copies of Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, Coleridge, Lamb, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, Tennyson, and so forth, exist in much greater plenty than was at first supposed, though very little reflection should have sufficed to establish the fact as an eminent probability; and all that was needed to draw them from their resting-places was the series of paragraphs in the press conveying to holders how valuable their property had unexpectedly become. Shall we not have more copies of Sh.e.l.ley"s poor little brochure of 1810 offered for sale ere long, as well as of Thackeray"s _Exquisites_ and _King Glumpus_?
At the same time, while we insist that the survival of means of supply is too large, and the market too limited, to sustain the extravagant quotations of recent years, there will ever remain persons prepared to give generous prices for absolutely first-cla.s.s examples of the best modern authors. There must be no qualification, nothing secondary, nothing dubious; and with these provisos, we do not venture to predict that the compet.i.tion might not become keener than ever. The same experience will result here and there, whenever a book forming a desideratum in more than one cabinet occurs for sale, and is perhaps the first copy which has been offered. At Sotheby"s in June 1896, Sh.e.l.ley"s _Oedipus Tyrannus_, 1820, it is said, was carried under these circ.u.mstances to 130. It was, we believe, one of two copies, picked up by a well-known amateur for fourpence each. On another account--its perfectly immaculate state in boards--a large-paper copy of Byron"s poems, 1807, was thought by Mr. Edward Huth not too dear at 105. It had been acquired by a London bookseller in exchange for one in morocco from a correspondent in Yorkshire, the latter receiving the bound book (which cost the vendor 27) and 18 difference, so that there was a profit on the transaction of 60. Seriously speaking, the purchase was extravagantly dear, for the book on large paper is at all events not scarcer than on small. One of the most signal incidents, however, in modern auctioneering annals was the sale of MSS. copies of the _Endymion_ and _Lamia_ of Keats in the poet"s handwriting for 1000, and the subsequent offer to the purchasers at that figure of a large advance for their bargain. These two items are printed, and the written copies were those employed by the printer, as upon the first leaf of each MS. were the directions as to size. They were in the familiar round schoolboy hand, and presented occasional corrections.
We heard a suggestion that there might have once, at all events, been a duplicate copy in existence. If the lots were worth the money, what would the ma.n.u.script of _Venus and Adonis_ or _Hamlet_ fetch?
The mischief which proceeds from the advertis.e.m.e.nts through the press of sensational sale prices is not one for which either the buyers or the sellers are responsible. It is due to the notorious circ.u.mstance that very few persons are able to discriminate accurately between an important item in an auction or elsewhere, and another submitted to their approval, ostensibly and professedly identical, but actually very different. A certain familiar type of bookseller will tell you that a copy of such or such a work fetched 50 under the hammer last week, but that he can let you have his--same edition, same date, same nearly everything--for fifty shillings. Of course it is no such matter; yet the bait is often swallowed, and the poor (or possibly rich) fish caught.
The relatively cheap literature of the present day has been thought to be a revival rather than an invention. We meet with tracts published in the reign of Elizabeth with the express notation of the price of issue, namely, one penny. The _Book of Common Prayer_, 1549, was to be sold at 2s. 2d. unbound, and 4s. in paste or boards. The ordinary amount charged for a tract extending to thirty or forty pages, and for a quarto play, was 4d. or a groat. The first folio Shakespeare, 1623, cost the original purchaser 20s.; Percival"s _Spanish Dictionary_, 1599, appears to have come out at 12s. There are lists of advertis.e.m.e.nts attached to publications of the later Stuart era showing that a large variety of popular productions brought the printer or stationer twopence or a penny. A curious little edition of _Coffee-House Jests_, 1760, bears the imprint:--
"Drogheda. Printed for the sake of a Penny: Sold in Waterford, Cork, and Kilkenny."
But throughout these statistics, which are capable, of course, of infinite augmentation, we have to keep before us the difference in the value of money, and the purchasing power of the same amount in other and more practical directions; and it follows that the printed matter offered to-day for threepence or sixpence had no real parallel in former times, and that the absolutely cheap book is a product of modern facilities for manufacture.
The published price not unfrequently presents itself at the foot of the t.i.tle on books of the late seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries. The simplicity of some individuals who are ranked among occasional or casual buyers was ill.u.s.trated many years since by a man going into a shop in Fleet Street and putting down eighteenpence in payment of Hubert"s _Edward II._, 1721, in the window. The bookseller explained to him that his price was 5s. "But," insisted the customer, "look at the t.i.tle-page; it was published at 1s. 6d." "Then you had better go to the publisher," observed the other, replacing the volume.
Book-collecting seems scarcely to concern very closely those who regard the pursuit from a severely practical point of view, or in the aspect of absolute intrinsic importance. It is true enough that one may form, not only a library, but a remarkably extensive one, of books of reference and study; but this does not quite answer to the idea of a bibliophile--in fact, it is little more than the digestion into book-form of a ma.s.s of learning and useful information. Again, if, without embracing such cla.s.ses of volumes, we limit ourselves to those which, as we express the matter above, are positively important, we of course find on our shelves all the capital authors, ancient and modern; yet how many we should have to reject which are accounted indispensable to a choice cabinet! And such is apt to be more peculiarly the case in a selection formed on Anglo-French lines, as anybody may readily judge by examining a catalogue of this kind, where pages and pages are occupied by irritating trifles of no solid pretensions whatever, not even those evident in personal or heraldic accessories.
The general rule may be applied to our modern books, that, whatever they may be for purposes of instruction or entertainment, they seldom represent the outlay, and still more rarely a profit upon it when the day arrives for realising. During some time past we have witnessed the rise and fall, or at least disappearance from the front rank, of individuals and schools of individuals whose writings no amount of friendly support in the press was capable of propping up beyond three or four seasons. It is not that some of them may not hereafter, like our older authors, return to notice and currency; but they will suffer that intermediate period of neglect which has been experienced by well-nigh all our greatest names in letters. There is for literature, in common with its buyers, an earth, a purgatory, and a heaven--or something else. The public cannot keep pace with the vast and unbroken succession of literary produce, and the favourites of the day pa.s.s over to neutral ground, with very few exceptions, when their honeymoon has expired, to await the deliberate verdict of posterity on their merit and their station. To the investor for a more or less immediate return, however, they are precarious possessions, unless the market be carefully watched. The wealthy and absolutely uncommercial amateur disregards these risks and these counsels; and he is in a sense to be envied.
The question of the First Edition is not limited to any era of literary history and production, and the call for this cla.s.s of book, at first (as usual) rather unreasoning, begins to be more critical and narrow. The author to be thus honoured by his posterity must have a certain bouquet and vogue. He must be a Shakespeare, a Jonson, a Herrick, a Burton, a Defoe, a Bunyan, a Burns, or (if we cross the sea) a Moliere, a Montaigne, or a Cervantes.