Bibliomania

“ Little did those barefooted priests know what an opponent to their Romish rites they were fostering into life; their [301] love of learning and passion for books, drove all fear away; and the splendor of the new power so dazzled their eyes that they could not clearly see the nature of the refulgent light just bursting through the gloom of ages.
After the invention of the printing art, bibliomania took some mighty strides; and many choice collectors, full of ardor in the pursuit, became renowned for the vast book stores they amassed together. ”

“ His bones are now mingled with the dust and gone, but his memory is engraven on tablets of life; the hearts of all bibliomaniacs love and esteem his name for the many virtues with which it was adorned, and delight to chat with his choice old spirit in the Philobiblon, so congenial to their bookish souls. No doubt the illustrious example of Richard de Bury tended materially to spread far and wide the spirit of bibliomania. It certainly operated powerfully on the monks of Durham, who not only by transcribing, but at the cost of considerable sums of money, greatly increased their library. ”

“ Bibliomania is beautiful as an entirety, as a symmetrical blending of a multitude of component parts, and he is indeed disloyal to the cause who, through envy or shortsightedness or ignorance, argues to the discredit of angling, or Napoleonana, or balladry, or Indians, or Burns, or Americana, or any other branch or phase of bibliomania ”

“ The collectors of books, whose early avidity to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal, rarely persist in cultivating the passion through life. Sometimes they are overtaken by misfortune—sometimes by indifference—the bibliomania not being a perennial inspiration, but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so much money and pains descends to the heirs of the collector, the passion for books is very seldom an inherited one. ”

“ Nor is it only engravings that are used. Play-bills, lottery-tickets, tradesmen's advertisements, autograph letters, maps, charts, broadsides, street ballads, bills even, all are grist for the Grangerite's mill.
It is a singularly futile hobby, and it is certainly a pernicious form of bibliomania, for it is responsible for the destruction of many good books. Whether its devotee imagines that any one is ever going to wade through his twenty monstrosities, turning, perhaps, six illustrations between page and page of text, we have not discovered. ”

“ Fortunate for us if the library is not condemned to be cleaned twice a year. These beloved objects ought to deny themselves a ring, or a horse, or a gown, or a ball now and then, to atone for their mankind’s debauchery in books; but do they? They ought to encourage the Bibliomania, for it keeps their husbands out of mischief, away from “that horrid club,” and safe at home of evenings. The Book-Worm is always a blameless being. He never has to hie to Canada as a refuge. ”

“ You remember what Cowper says—
God made the country, and Man made the town?
Alman. This may be very well—but we forget the purpose for which we are convened.
Lis. True: so I entreat you, Master Lysander, to open—not the debate—but the discussion.
Lysand. You wish to know what are the symptoms of the bibliomania?—what are the badges or livery marks, in a library, of the owner of the collection being a bibliomaniac?
Alman. Even so. My question, yesterday evening, was—if I remember well—whether a mere collector of books was necessarily a bibliomaniac? ”

“ To deprive such a man as Cotton of the ocular and manual comforts of his library—to suppose that he could be happy in the most splendid drawing room in Europe, without his books—is to suppose what our experience of virtuous bibliomaniacs will not permit us to accede to. ”

“ The modern bibliophiles who know what it is to revel in the enjoyment of a goodly library, luxuriant in costly bindings and rich in bibliographical rarities, who are [111] fully susceptible to the delights and exquisite sensibilities of that sweet madness called bibliomania, will readily comprehend the multiplied pleasures of that early and illustrious bibliophile in the seclusion of Auckland Palace; he there ardently applied his energies and wealth to the accumulation of books; and whilst engaged in this pleasing avocation, let us endeavor to catch a glimpse of him. ”

“ As a bibliophile it is somewhat pleasing to trace [14] a deep book passion growing up in the barrenness of the cloister, and to find in some cowled monk a bibliomaniac as warm and enthusiastic in his way as the renowned "Atticus," or the noble Roxburghe, of more recent times. It is true we can draw no comparison between the result of their respective labors. The hundreds, which in the old time were deemed a respectable if not an extensive collection, would look insignificant beside the ostentatious array of modern libraries. ”

“ In bindings full and fine,
And keep her where no human eyes
Should see her charms, but mine!"
In "Dear Old London" the poet wailed that "a splendid Horace cheap for cash" laughed at his poverty, and in "Dibdin's Ghost" he revelled in the delights that await the bibliomaniac in the future state, where there is no admission to the women folk who, "wanting victuals, make a fuss if we buy books instead"; while in "Flail, Trask and Bisland" is the very essence of bibliomania, the unquenchable thirst for possession. ”

“ A passion for books illustrated or adorned with numerous prints, representing characters or circumstances mentioned in the work, is a very general and violent symptom of the Bibliomania, which has been known chiefly within the last half century. ”

“ This [50] symptom of the Bibliomania is, at the present day, both general and violent, and threatens to extend still more widely. Even modern publications are not exempt from its calamitous influence; and when Mr. Miller, the bookseller, told me with what eagerness the large paper copies of Lord Valentia's Travels were bespoke, and Mr. Evans shewed me that every similar copy of his new edition of "Burnett's History of his own Times" was disposed of, I could not help elevating my eyes and hands, in token of commisB. 46eration at the prevalence of this Symptom of the Bibliomania! ”

“ 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! ”

“ The bibliophile ought not to be confused with the bouquiniste, [17] the second-hand-book addict, of whom I shall now have something to say, although the bibliophile is by no means too proud to visit the second-hand book-stalls from time to time. He knows that more than one pearl has been cast before swine, and more than one literary treasure found in vulgar wrappings. Unfortunately, luck of this sort is extremely rare. As for the bibliomaniac, he never looks over second-hand books, since to do so would again introduce the element of choice. The bibliomaniac cannot choose; he buys. ”

“ To collect books indiscriminately tends to develop the dread bibliomania. To specialise in a particular class of books should be the object of every collector; but to adhere so rigidly to that one class of literature as to exclude from our library the great books of the world, is to deprive ourselves [59] of all the advantages which a library can offer. 'There are some books, as Homer, Virgil, Horace, Milton, Shakespeare, and Scott, which every man should read who has the opportunity ”

“ It arose from the scarcity of paper in former times, so that when a message had to be sent which required more exactitude than could be entrusted to the stupid memory of a household messenger, the Master or Chaplain went to the library, and, not having paper to use, took down an old book, and cut from its broad margins one or more slips to serve his present need.
I feel quite inclined to reckon among "enemies" those bibliomaniacs and over-careful possessors, who, being unable to carry their treasures into the next world, do all they can to hinder their usefulness in this. ”

“ An unique copy of the first Livy, upon vellum, (of which the owner has excited the envy of foreigners) is a library of itself!—and the existence of vellum copies of Wynkyn De Worde's reprint of Juliana Barnes's Book of Hawking, &c., complete in every respect, (to say nothing of his Majesty's similar copy of Caxton's Doctrinal of Sapience, in the finest preservation) 520 are sufficient demonstrations of the prevalance of this symptoms of the Bibliomania in the times of our forefathers; so that it cannot be said, as some have asserted, to have appeared entirely within the last half century. ”

“ Never did the bibliomaniac's eye alight upon 'sweeter copies'—as the phrase is; and never did the bibliomaniacal barometer rise higher than at this sale! The most marked phrensy characterized it. A copy of the Editio Princeps of Homer (by no means a first-rate one) brought 92l.: and all the Aldine Classics produced such an electricity of sensation that buyers stuck at nothing to embrace them! Do not let it hence be said that black-letter lore is the only fashionable pursuit of the present age of book-collectors. ”

“ Instead of laughing at our book-hobbies, and ridiculing all bibliographical studies—which, even by a bibliographer in the dry department of the law, have been rather eloquently defended and enforced [422] —behold this young bibliomaniacal chevalier, not daunted by the rough handling of a London Book-Auction, anxious to mount his courser, and scour the provincial fields of bibliography! Happy change! From my heart I congratulate you!
[422] "Our nation (says Mr. Bridgeman) has been too inattentive to bibliographical criticisms and enquiries ”

“ The harmless, deliciously enjoyable fever of the bibliophile becomes, in the bibliomaniac, an acute malady bordering on delirium. Once it has reached that fatal stage of paroxysm it loses all contact with the intelligence and resembles any other mania. I do not know whether or not the phrenologists, who have discovered so many absurdities, have as yet localized the collector’s instinct—developed to such a high degree in some poor devils of my acquaintance—within the box of bone which houses our poor brain. ”

“ We read so much in the papers nowadays of the extravagant sums paid for rare books by our modern millionaire bibliomaniacs that one is apt to become somewhat panic-stricken upon experiencing the first symptoms of the bibliomania. ”

“ Faulkener is in his three-pair-of-stairs confined workshop by five in the morning winter and summer, and oftentimes labours 'till twelve at night. Severer toil, with more uniform good humour and civility in the midst of all his embarrassments, were never perhaps witnessed in a brother of the ancient and respectable craft of Book-binding!
Lis. I entreat you not to inflame my imagination by200 such tantalizing pictures! You know this must ever be a fiction: the most successful bibliomaniac never attained to such human happiness. ”

“ His library must haveB. 14 been a magnificent one, if we may judge from the splendid specimens of it which now remain. [19] It would appear, too, that, about this time, the Bibliomania was increased by the introduction of foreign printed books; and it is not very improbable that a portion of Henry's immense wealth was devoted towards the purchase of vellum copies, which were now beginning to be published by the great typographical triumvirate, Verard, Eustace, and Pigouchet. ”

“ We can only mourn over such names as Beauclerk, Crofts, Pearson, Lort, Mason, Farmer, Steevens, Woodhouse, Brand, and Reed! and fondly hope that the list may not be increased by those of living characters!
We are, in the second place, to describe the Symptoms of the Disease.
The ingenious Peignot, in the first volume of his 'Dictionnaire Bibliologie,' p. 51, defines the Bibliomania [48] to be "a passion for possessing books; notB. 44 so much to be instructed by them, as to gratify the eye by looking on them. ”

“ Yet Isaac Walton called this art, "The Contemplative Man's Recreation." But a book-fisherman, like myself, must not presume to reconcile such great and contradictory authorities.
"But see—the hammer is vibrating, at an angle of twenty-two and a half, over a large paper priced catalogue of Major Pearson's books!—Who is the lucky purchaser?
"Quisquilius:—a victim to the Bibliomania. If one single copy of a work happen to be printed in a more particular manner than another; and if the compositor (clever rogue) happen to have transposed or inverted a whole sentence or page ”

“ Birth of His Majesty, the King of Rome.”—The skull of the bibliomaniac must have approximately the same protuberances.
Only a step separates the sublime from the ridiculous; only a crise, the bibliophile from the bibliomaniac. The one often turns into the other through mental deterioration or [16] increase of fortune—two grave afflictions to which the best of men are subject, though the first is far more common than the second. ”

“ Thus there are bibliomaniacs who reprint rare books from their own libraries in limited numbers; authors, like Walpole, who print their own works, and whose fame as printers is better deserved than their reputation as writers; like Thackeray, who design the illustrations for their own romances, or, like Astor, who procure a single copy of their novel to be illustrated at lavish expense by artists; amateurs who bind their own books; lunatics who yearn for books wholly engraved, or printed only on one side of the leaf, or Greek books wholly in capitals, or others in the italic letter ”