BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. with books that were not every day brought into publick light, and few eminent Libraries were bought where Dispersed Prihe had not the liberty to pick and choose. Hence arose, as that vast number of his books, so the choiceness and rarity of the greatest part of them, and that of all kinds, and in all sorts of learning. No more need be instanced than that of History [in which he had] the most considerable historians of all ages and nations, ancient and modern, ... especially especially of our own and the neighbour nations, wherof, I believe, there is scarce any thing wanting that is extant." "He was also," says another writer, Anthony Wood, "a great collector of MSS...... Among the books relating to History were his collection of Lives; the Elogia of illustrious men,... the Lives and characters of Writers, and such who have writ of the foundations of Monasteries." Wood adds that afterwards there was a design to buy his choice Library for a public use, "by a collection of moneys to be raised among generous persons; but the work being public, and therefore but little forwarded, it came into the hands of Richard Chiswell," &c. The sale took place in May 1682,'--within six years, therefore of the first recorded sale of books by auction in England, and the catalogue of it occupies four That of the collection of Dr. Lazarus Seaman, which figures first in Gough's list (Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century) was perhaps the earliest. "It hath not been usual here in England to make sale 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," etc. BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. hundred and four closely printed pages in large quarto. Dispersed Pri- It included fourteen Caxtons, the aggregate produce of which was £3 14s. 7d.; the Godfrey of Bulloigne fetching eighteen shillings, "being K. Edwarde the IVth's owne booke;" and the Booke of Good Manners two shillings. The highest price attained in this sale was for Holinshed's Chronicle, "with the addition of many sheets that were castrated, being. not allowed to be printed." This brought seven pounds. Libraries of the Maitlands of ... The Maitlands of Lauderdale were in several generations eminent for their love of books. Richard, the fourth Earl, collected a Library of which, as we have seen, Evelyn has said that it was "certainly the noblest, most substantial, and accomplished Library that ever pass'd 'under the speare.'" This was written in 1689, at which time the collection of his more famous (or more notorious) uncle, John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, was still entire, although both were soon afterwards dispersed. When Earl Richard's collection was sold (also in 1689), he was yet Lord Maitland. Two years afterwards, he succeeded his father, but he lived and died an exile, faithfully adhering to James II. The strength of the Maitland collection lay especially in History, and in Books of Prints. It had been chiefly gathered abroad. It also comprised a remarkable series of separate prints and of original drawings, chiefly of the Italian masters, which were sold in the following year, in the deserted Westminster mansion from which Jeffreys had recently fled. The Library of the Duke of Lauderdale was exten BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. sive and in superb condition. Evelyn has told us that he was a dangerous borrower of other men's books, as Dispersed Prithe accomplished Diarist knew to his cost. He was curious in Large Paper copies, and had made an extensive collection of the literature of France, Italy, and Spain. The sale began in May 1690, and was continued piecemeal, at considerable intervals. The MSS. included many volumes of great interest for the History and Literature of Scotland, and were not sold until 1692.1 Francis Bernard. The next conspicuous collection to be dispersed by Library of Dr. public sale, was that of Dr. Francis Bernard, Chief physician to King James II. The compiler of his catalogue says of him that he was too well known to need a character, but the writer's disregard of his own precept has left us a few lines which seem life-like and worth the reading:-"As few men knew books and that part of learning which is called Historia Literaria, better than himself, so there never appeared in England so choice and valuable a catalogue as this before us. Being a person who collected his books, not for ostentation or ornament, he seemed no more solicitous about their dress than his own, and, therefore, you'ill find that a gilt back or large margin was very seldom ..... ... Evelyn, Diary, iii, 309; Catalogus librorum instructissimæ bibliotheca Nobilis cujusdam Scoto-Britanni, etc., 1689, passim; Bibliothèque de feu Monseigneur le Duc de Lauderdale,... Françoise, Italienne, et Espagnole, 1690, passim; The English part of the Library of the late Duke of Lauderdale, 1690, passim; Bibliotheca instructissima..... Cui adjicitur Bibliotheca Manuscripta Lauderdaliana, 1692, passim. For the loan of these rare and very curious Catalogues, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Gibson Craig. BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. an inducement for him to buy. 'Twas sufficient for him Dispersed Pri- that he had the book. Though considering that he was so unhappy to want heirs capable of making that use of them which he had done, and that therefore they were to be dispersed,... I have heard him condemn his own negligence in that particular; observing that the garniture of a book was apt to recommend it to a great part of our modern collectors."1 The Library of shire. Dr. Bernard's Library sold for £2000, (from which sum a fifth had to be deducted for expenses). The work of highest price was the Polyglott Bible of Walton, with Castell's Lexicon, which brought ten pounds. Thirteen Caxtons sold at prices varying from eighteen pence to five shillings and four pence; and amounting in the whole to forty-one shillings and four pence; the Aldine Aristophanes (1498) fetched eighteen shillings; Stanley's Eschylus forty-one shillings; four tracts by Giordano Bruno forty-five shillings." In 1726, occurred the sale of the large and curious Northampton Library which had been collected by John Bridges of Lincoln's Inn, the historian of Northamptonshire. He was a man who read books as well as bought them; worked hard, at intervals, in his own department of Topography; and at his death made arrangements for the transfer of his Northamptonshire collections into the hands of persons who would undertake to methodize and print them. The work, however, was not com Catalogue of the Library of the late Dr. Francis Bernard (1698), reface. 2 Repertorium Bibliographicum, 397-402. THE LIBRARY OF JOHN BRIDGES. 123 pleted until nearly seventy years had elapsed from the collector's death. According to the caustic notes on this sale inserted by Humphrey Wanley in his Diary, the surviving brothers of Mr. Bridges were very keen in turning their inheritance to the best account. The testator had expressly directed that all his books and MSS. should be sold, with the exception indicated above. Wanley's special interest in the sale arose from his desire to obtain some valuable additions for the Library of Lord Oxford. Under the date of Feb. 1726, he writes:"Went to Mr. Bridges' chambers to see the three fine MSS. again, the Doctor, his brother, having locked them up. He openly bids for his own books, merely to enhance their price, and the auction proves to be, what I thought it would become, very knavish." And again: "Yesterday, at five, I met Mr. Noel, and tarried. long with him; we settled then the whole affair touching his bidding for my Lord, at the roguish sale of Mr. Bridges' books. The Rev. Doctor, one of the brothers, hath already displayed himself so remarkably as to be both hated and despised; and a combination amongst the booksellers will soon be against him and his brother the lawyer. They are men of the keenest avarice, and their very looks (according to what I am told) dart out harping irons. I have ordered Mr. Noel to drop every article in My Lord's commission, when they shall be hoisted up to too high a price." The Library was especially strong in British History and in fine 1 Wanley's Diary (Lansdowne MS.) as quoted by Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, i, 93, 94; ii, 105. BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. Dispersed Private Libraries. |