Very many years ago we became convinced Judge
Methuen and I did that there was nothing
new in the world. I think it was while we were
in London and while we were deep in the many fads
of bibliomania that we arrived at this important conclusion.
We had been pursuing with enthusiasm
the exciting delights of extra-illustration, a practice
sometimes known as Grangerism; the friends of the
practice call it by the former name, the enemies by
the latter. We were engaged at extra-illustrating
Boswell’s life of Johnson, and had already got
together somewhat more than eleven thousand prints
when we ran against a snag, an obstacle we never could
surmount. We agreed that our work would be incomplete,
and therefore vain, unless we secured a picture of
the book with which the great lexicographer knocked
down Osborne, the bookseller at Gray’s Inn Gate.
Unhappily we were wholly in the dark
as to what the title of that book was, and, although
we ransacked the British Museum and even appealed to
the learned Frognall Dibdin, we could not get a clew
to the identity of the volume. To be wholly
frank with you, I will say that both the Judge and
I had wearied of the occupation; moreover, it involved
great expense, since we were content with nothing
but India proofs (those before letters preferred).
So we were glad of this excuse for abandoning the
practice.
While we were contemplating a graceful
retreat the Judge happened to discover in the “Natural
History” of Pliny a passage which proved to
our satisfaction that, so far from being a new or a
modern thing, the extra-illustration of books was
of exceptional antiquity. It seems that Atticus,
the friend of Cicero, wrote a book on the subject of
portraits and portrait-painting, in the course of which
treatise he mentions that Marcus Varro “conceived
the very liberal idea of inserting, by some means
or another, in his numerous volumes, the portraits
of several hundred individuals, as he could not bear
the idea that all traces of their features should
be lost or that the lapse of centuries should get
the better of mankind.”
“Thus,” says Pliny, “was
he the inventor of a benefit to his fellow-men that
might have been envied by the gods themselves; for
not only did he confer immortality upon the originals
of these portraits, but he transmitted these portraits
to all parts of the earth, so that everywhere it might
be possible for them to be present, and for each to
occupy his niche.”
Now, Pliny is not the only one who
has contributed to the immortalization of Marcus Varro.
I have had among my papers for thirty years the verses
which Judge Methuen dashed off (for poets invariably
dash off their poetry), and they are such pleasant
verses that I don’t mind letting the world see
them.
Marcus Varro
Marcus Varro went up and down
The places where old books were sold;
He ransacked all the shops in town
For pictures new and pictures old.
He gave the folk of earth no peace;
Snooping around by day and night,
He plied the trade in Rome and Greece
Of an insatiate Grangerite.
“Pictures!” was evermore his
cry
“Pictures
of old or recent date,”
And pictures only would he buy
Wherewith to “extra-illustrate.”
Full many a tome of ancient type
And many a manuscript
he took,
For nary purpose but to swipe
Their pictures
for some other book.
While Marcus Varro plied his fad
There was not
in the shops of Greece
A book or pamphlet to be had
That was not minus
frontispiece.
Nor did he hesitate to ply
His baleful practices
at home;
It was not possible to buy
A perfect book
in all of Rome!
What must the other folk have done
Who, glancing
o’er the books they bought,
Came soon and suddenly upon
The vandalism
Varro wrought!
How must their cheeks have flamed
with red
How did their
hearts with choler beat!
We can imagine what they said
We can imagine,
not repeat!
Where are the books that Varro made
The pride of dilettante
Rome
With divers portraitures inlaid
Swiped from so
many another tome?
The worms devoured them long ago
O wretched worms!
ye should have fed
Not on the books “extended”
so,
But on old Varro’s
flesh instead!
Alas, that Marcus Varro lives
And is a potent
factor yet!
Alas, that still his practice gives
Good men occasion
for regret!
To yonder bookstall, pri’thee,
go,
And by the “missing”
prints and plates
And frontispieces you shall know
He lives, and
“extra-illustrates”!
In justice to the Judge and to myself
I should say that neither of us wholly approves the
sentiment which the poem I have quoted implies.
We regard Grangerism as one of the unfortunate stages
in bibliomania; it is a period which seldom covers
more than five years, although Dr. O’Rell has
met with one case in his practice that has lasted ten
years and still gives no symptom of abating in virulence.
Humanity invariably condones the pranks
of youth on the broad and charitable grounds that
“boys will be boys”; so we bibliomaniacs
are prone to wink at the follies of the Grangerite,
for we know that he will know better by and by and
will heartily repent of the mischief he has done.
We know the power of books so well that we know that
no man can have to do with books that presently he
does not love them. He may at first endure them;
then he may come only to pity them; anon, as surely
as the morrow’s sun riseth, he shall embrace
and love those precious things.
So we say that we would put no curb
upon any man, it being better that many books should
be destroyed, if ultimately by that destruction a
penitent and loyal soul be added to the roster of bibliomaniacs.
There is more joy over one Grangerite that repenteth
than over ninety and nine just men that need no repentance.
And we have a similar feeling toward
such of our number as for the nonce become imbued
with a passion for any of the other little fads which
bibliomaniac flesh is heir to. All the soldiers
in an army cannot be foot, or horse, or captains,
or majors, or generals, or artillery, or ensigns,
or drummers, or buglers. Each one has his place
to fill and his part to do, and the consequence is
a concinnate whole. 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; for each
of these things accomplishes a noble purpose in that
each contributes to the glory of the great common
cause of bibliomania, which is indeed the summum
bonum of human life.
I have heard many decried who indulged
their fancy for bookplates, as if, forsooth, if a
man loved his books, he should not lavish upon them
testimonials of his affection! Who that loves
his wife should hesitate to buy adornments for her
person? I favor everything that tends to prove
that the human heart is swayed by the tenderer
emotions. Gratitude is surely one of the noblest
emotions of which humanity is capable, and he is indeed
unworthy of our respect who would forbid humanity’s
expressing in every dignified and reverential manner
its gratitude for the benefits conferred by the companionship
of books.
As for myself, I urge upon all lovers
of books to provide themselves with bookplates.
Whenever I see a book that bears its owner’s
plate I feel myself obligated to treat that book with
special consideration. It carries with it a certificate
of its master’s love; the bookplate gives the
volume a certain status it would not otherwise have.
Time and again I have fished musty books out of bins
in front of bookstalls, bought them and borne them
home with me simply because they had upon their covers
the bookplates of their former owners. I have
a case filled with these aristocratic estrays, and
I insist that they shall be as carefully dusted and
kept as my other books, and I have provided in my
will for their perpetual maintenance after my decease.
If I were a rich man I should found
a hospital for homeless aristocratic books, an institution
similar in all essential particulars to the institution
which is now operated at our national capital under
the bequest of the late Mr. Cochrane. I should
name it the Home for Genteel Volumes in Decayed Circumstances.
I was a young man when I adopted the
bookplate which I am still using, and which will be
found in all my books. I drew the design myself
and had it executed by a son of Anderson, the first
of American engravers. It is by no means elaborate:
a book rests upon a heart, and underneath appear the
lines:
My Book and Heart
Must never part.
Ah, little Puritan maid, with thy
dear eyes of honest blue and thy fair hair in proper
plaits adown thy back, little thought we that springtime
long ago back among the New England hills that the
tiny book we read together should follow me through
all my life! What a part has that Primer played!
And now all these other beloved companions bear witness
to the love I bear that Primer and its teachings, for
each wears the emblem I plucked from its homely pages.
That was in the springtime, Captivity
Waite; anon came summer, with all its exuberant glory,
and presently the cheery autumn stole upon me.
And now it is the winter-time, and under the snows
lies buried many a sweet, fair thing I cherished
once. I am aweary and will rest a little while;
lie thou there, my pen, for a dream a pleasant
dream calleth me away. I shall see
those distant hills again, and the homestead under
the elms; the old associations and the old influences
shall be round about me, and a child shall lead me
and we shall go together through green pastures and
by still waters. And, O my pen, it will be the
springtime again!