John Dibdin

“ Such a character is George John Earl Spencer! A nobleman, not less upright and weighty in the senate than polished and amiable in private life; who, cool and respected amidst the violence of party, has filled two of the most important offices of state in a manner at once popular and effective; and who, to his general love of the fine arts, and acquaintance with classical literature, has superadded the noble achievement of having collected the finest private library in Europe! ”

“ Peignot tells us that it is of rare occurrence [55] among his countrymen, and yet, as we have seen, he thought it necessary to correct the technical term applied to this kind of practitioner, by calling him a Bibliothapte when he conceals books—a Bibliolyte when he destroys them. Dibdin warmed his convivial guests at a comfortable fire, fed by the woodcuts from which had been printed the impression of the Bibliographical Decameron. ”

“ The subsequent History of the Bibliomania is a striking proof of the truth of this remark: for the disease rather increased, and the work of death yet went on. In the following year (1776) died John Ratcliffe; [392] a bibliomaniac of a very peculiar393 character. If he had contented himself with his former occupation, and frequented the butter and cheese,394 instead of the book, market—if he could have fancied himself in a brown peruke, and Russian apron, instead of an embroidered waistcoat, velvet breeches, and flowing periwig, he might, perhaps, have enjoyed greater longevity ”

“ Every thing the most amiable, and, I had almost said, enviable, is here said of the virtues of his head and heart; and that this venerable bibliomaniac should have reached his 80th year is at least a demonstration that tarrying amongst folios and octavos, from morn till night (which Baker used to do, in St. John's Library, for nearly 20 years together) , does not unstring the nerves, or dry up the juices, of the human frame. ”

“ I had never witnessed M. Van Praet more alive to social disquisition. We talked of books, of pictures, and of antiquities ... and I happened, with the same witless simplicity which had pinned the portrait of King John over my seat at dinner, to mention that volume, of almost unparalleled rarity, ycleped the Fables of Pfister, printed at Bamberg in 1461:--which they had recently RESTORED to the Wolfenbuttel Library! It was "more than enough" for the acute feelings of the devoted head-librarian. ”

“ Hapless man!—for, to his astonishment, he saw Morte d'Arthur, printed by Caxton—Richard Cœur de Lyon, by W. de Worde—The Widow Edyth, by Pynson—and, towering above the rest, a large paper copy of the original edition of Prince's Worthies of Devon; while, lying transversely at top, reposed John Weever's Epigrams, "The spirit of Captain Cox is here revived"—exclaimed Ferdinand—while, on looking above, he saw a curious set of old plays, with Dido, Queen of Carthage, at the head of them! What should he do? ”

“ You cannot imagine any thing more perfect of their kind and for their size, than are the beasts, birds, insects, fruits, and flowers. The vellum harmonises admirably, from its colour and quality. There are several comparatively large illuminations: some with very small figures; and two (one of St. John the Baptist, and the other of Christ mocked) are of great beauty in respect to force of colour. The initial capitals are executed with equal attention to taste in composition, and delicacy in colouring. This diminutive volume is only four inches high, by about two inches and three quarters wide. ”

“ Are there any other bibliomaniacs of distinction yet to notice? Yes!—I well remember the book-sale events of the last four years. I well remember the curiosity excited by the collections of the Marquis of Lansdowne, John Brand, Isaac Reed, Richard Porson, Alexander Dalrymple, and Richard Gough, [413] and with these I must absolutely make my bibliomaniacal peroration! Illustrious men! ”

“ Don't you know the meaning of responsibility for young lives, Dibdin? I want to give her her chance, educate her, make a fine woman of her. They have a father; she has no one but me. I can't turn her out—and I wish," I added lamely, "I had as much right to keep them all."
"Whew!" he whistled in renewed astonishment.
"I can only say I don't know you any more. I used to know you, but I'm proud to make the acquaintance of the new Mr. Randolph Byrd."
"Don't be a damn fool, Dibdin," I mumbled in exasperation. "You know you are talking rot. Why the devil are you so interested in the kids? ”

“ In 1818 Dibdin was commissioned by Earl Spencer to purchase books for him on the continent, an expedition described in his sumptuous Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany (1821) . In 1824 he made an ambitious venture in his Library Companion, or the Young Man’s Guide and Old Man’s Comfort in the Choice of a Library, intended to point out the best works in all departments of literature. His culture was not broad enough, however, to render him competent for the task, and the work was severely criticized. ”

“ I leads a jovial life;
In ev’ry mess I finds a friend,
In ev’ry port a wife.
To our thinking, Charles Dibdin, celebrated as he was for his sea songs, deserves far higher praise for quite another sort of country song, of which we will give an example. His sailors are too much addicted, when storms rage and billows roll, to [Pg 209] sling the flowing bowl ”

“ When Dibdin, in November 1815, threatened to burn all the remaining copies (about 110) of the fourth volume of the ‘Bibliotheca Spenceriana,’ for which he was unable to find purchasers, Major took them over on liberal terms (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxv. pt. ii. pp. 391, 513) . He was afterwards a warm supporter of Dibdin's publications. He subscribed for no fewer than fifty copies of Dibdin's edition of ‘Thomas à Kempis’ (1828) , and was the publisher of Dibdin's ‘Reminiscences’ (1836) . But he suffered his affairs to become so entangled in Dibdin's speculations, that his failure followed. ”

“ Without being a brilliant he was always a conscientious actor, of close study, letter-perfect, and paying attention to costume. On the Kent circuit he never lost ground, and when the mayor of Canterbury visited him in town (at Easter 1804) , Dibdin was able to take him round the chief theatres; when at Covent Garden three of his pieces were being acted the same night. At Canterbury he wrote ‘The British Raft,’ ridiculing the threatened French invasion, and its one song, ‘The Snug Little Island,’ attained astonishing popularity. ”

“ And she left us.
"Better strip, my lad," chuckled Dibdin, "and put on your wrestling trunks."
"What d'you mean?" I demanded sulkily.
"The tussle that life is going to give you will be a caution."
"A lot you know about life!"
"Not much, that's a fact," Dibdin observed more soberly. "But I've had to face some things, Randolph. I've had to grin at a lot of greasy Arabs in the desert who thought they would hold me for ransom. I've had to laugh out of their dull ambition a pack of villainous Chinese thugs in Gobi, who felt it would profit them to cut my throat. ”

“ Dibdin put in encouragingly. "Sergeant Cullum is the bureau of missing persons."
"Give me a little time," he urged again, with the fervid intensity of prayer—Time! And it was Alicia who was missing!
I shook his hand and gave him time and parted from him with a hope that I should not have to wait for his ecstatic visions to restore her.
"He'll find her!" Dibdin exclaimed reassuringly. "Never fear. If there is one thing I've learned, it's to accept the methods of people so long as they produce the results. ”

“ Dibdin.' In the summer of 88 he sailed for India, but the vessel being driven to take shelter in Torbay, he finally abandoned his intention and returned to London. Dibdin next resolved to rely on his own unaided exertions, and in 1789 produced at Hutchins' Auction Room, King Street, Covent Garden, the first of those 'table entertainments' which he originated [App. p.613 [see vol. iv. p.51 a] , and of which he was author, composer, narrator, singer, and accompanyist, under the title of 'The Whim of the Moment.' On the first evening there was an attendance of only sixteen persons. ”

“ It is subjoined to these words of my text: "Be pleased to go strait forward as far as you can see." "L'homme de service lui-même ne ferait plus cette rêponse aujourd'hui. Peu de temps après l'impression du Voyage de M. Dibdin, ce qu'on appelle une organisation eut lieu. Après vingt-sept ans de travaux consacrés à la bibliographique et aux devoirs de sa place, M. Barbier, que ses fonctions paisibles avoient protégés contre les terribles dénonciations de 1815, n'a pu régister, en 1822, aux délations mensongères de quelque commis sous M. Lauriston. ”

“ In his youth he must have been handsome, and his complexion is yet delicate. But good old M. Chardin is an oddity in his way. He physics "according to the book"--that is, according to the Almanack; although I should think he had scarcely one spare ounce of blood in his veins. Phlebotomy is his "dear delight." He is always complaining, and yet expects to be always free from complaint. But Madame will have it so, and Monsieur is consenting. He lives on the floor just above the entresol, and his two or three small apartments are gaily furnished with books. The interior is very interesting ”

“ My translator again brandishes his pen in order to draw good-natured comparisons. "It would be lucky for him, if, to the qualities he possesses, M. Dibdin would unite those which he praises in M. Brunet: his work and the public would be considerable gainers by it: his books would not be so costly, and would be more profitable. The English Author describes nothing in a sang- froid manner: he is for ever charging: and, as he does not want originality in his vivacity, he should seem to wish to be the CALLOT of Bibliography." CRAPELET. Ibid. ”

“ A few of the ensuing numbers might be well devoted to an analysis of Sir William Dugdale's works, with correct lists of the plates in the same.
"You are up betimes," said I. "What dream has disturbed your rest?" "None" replied he; "but the most delightful visions have appeared to me during my sleep. Since you left Lorenzo's, I have sipt nectar with Leland, and drunk punch with Bagford. Richard Murray has given me a copy of Rastell's Pastime of People, [415] and Thomas Britton has bequeathed to me an entire library of the Rosicrusian [416] philosophy. ”

“ Samphire s dangerous illness. Mark listened with eager ears. And what did Dibdin himself think? Dibdin, like all of his class, was lamentably pessimistic. "In the hall, we entertain no hope, no hope," Dibdin murmured. "And to think of that beautiful castle at Parham without the mistress is breaking our hearts in two, sir."
A terrible ten days passed. At the beginning of the first week Mark received a letter from Mrs. Perowne. Between the lines of it an even more distracted vision than Mark's might have caught a glimpse of the Fury. ”

“ The leaves may all be cut, and the tops trimmed, and even gilded, without [28] striking terror to the heart of the bibliomaniac. Dibdin, indeed, treats this last mentioned symptom in merely a superficial way and dismisses it with a few cursory remarks, viz: "It may be defined a passion to possess books of which the edges have never been sheared by the binder's tools." ”

“ Its enthusiastic librarian, whom I must be allowed to call a very wonderful bibliomaniac, made constant journeys, and entered into a perpetual correspondence, relating to books and literary curiosities. He died at Abbeville in 1653, in his 53rd year, on returning from Sweden, where the famous Christian had invited him. Naudæus's "Avis, &c.", [ut supr.] was translated by Chaline; but his "Avis à Nosseigneurs du Parlement, &c." 1652, 4to.—upon the sale of the Cardinal's library—and his "Remise de la Bihliothéque [Du Cardinal] entre le mains de M. Tubeuf, 1651," are much scarcer productions. ”

“ Not for a moment do I now believe in his lapsed memory story. I cannot deny, however, that his air is one of repentance and, as Dibdin has said, who in this world is so hard but he wouldn't give a fellow man a second chance?
Jim Pendleton, now that he has been to a New York tailor's, appears as impressive and debonair as ever. He must be in the middle forties and he is not ill-looking. It is chiefly his eyes that seem changed to me. Do what I will, I cannot look at them. There is a certain disturbing obliqueness about his gaze that makes me turn mine away in a sort of vicarious shame. ”

“ On 30 Oct. 1768 Bickerstaffe's ‘Padlock,’ produced at Drury Lane theatre, enabled Dibdin to make his ‘greatest hit’ as Mungo, after Moody had rehearsed and resigned the part. Twenty-eight thousand copies of the ‘Padlock’ were sold; whereby Bickerstaffe, as author of the words, realised fully 1,700l. by 1779 (G. Hogarth) ; but Dibdin received only 43l. for having composed the music. His brother Thomas had been released from imprisonment, and got an appointment for India through Sir William Young; Charles having crippled himself to pay his brother's debts and assist his outfit. ”

“ But—Pendleton!
"If you remember this setting," runs Dibdin's letter, "you will realize how easy it was even for a bear like me to pick up quickly the gossip of the place and, incidentally, the legend of Patterson. Patterson I learned was a drifter, an idler, a gambler, and a staunch support of the Grand bar. He is adroit, suave, pleasant, shifty—an American. Some trader found him on the beach in the Marquesas, took him along for company among the islands and ultimately landed him here. He has traded in skins, in silk, in insurance ”

“ It was only natural after Dibdin had composed a great part of the music to ‘Love in the City,’ and to ‘Lionel and Clarissa’—as we write the words, Tom Cooke’s manly voice seems to fill the house with ‘I’ll love thee ever dearly!‘—it is natural, we say, that ‘Charley’ should find himself growing famous. ”