Prices of Books Part 5

First, I did write to his maistership a little booke of Pheesyk, for which I had paide by Sir Thomas Leevys in Westminster xxd

Item, I had for the wrytyng of half the Prevy seale of Pampyng viijd

Item, for the wrytynge of the seid hole prevy seale of Sir Thomas ijs

Item, I wrote viij of the Witnessis in parchement, but aftir xiiijd a peece, for which I was paide of Sir Thomas xs

Item, while my seide maister over the see in Midsomertime. Calle sett me a warke to wryte two tymes the prevy seale in papir, and then after cleerely in parchement iiijs viijd

And also wrote the same tyme oon mo of the largest witnessis, and other dyvers and necessary wrytyngs, for which he promisid me xs, whereof I had of Calle but iiijs viijd. car. vs iiij vs iiijd

I resceyvid of Sir Thomas at Westminster penultimo die Oct. anno viiij iijs iiijd

Item, I did write to quairs of papir of witnessis, every quair conteyning xiiij leves after ijd a leff iiijs viijd

Item, as to the Grete Booke--First, for wrytyng of the Coronacion, and other tretys of Knyghthode, in that quaire which conteyneth a xiij levis and more ijd a lef ijs ijd

Item, for the tretys of Werre in iiij books, which conteyneth lx levis aftir ijd a leaff xs

Item, for _Othea_ pistill, which conteyneth xliij leves vijs iid

Item, for the Chalengs and the acts of Armes which is xxviij^ti less iiijs viijd

Item, for _De Regimine Principum_, which conteyneth xlv^ti leves, aftir a peny a leef, which is right wele worth iijs ixd

Item, for Rubrissheyng of all the booke iijs iiijd[21]

The ?Grete Booke,? described above, is now among the Lansdowne Ma.n.u.scripts (No. 285) in the British Museum, and is fully described in the Catalogue of that Collection, 1812 (Part II., pp. 99-102).

In quoting the foregoing particulars of the early sale of MSS. and of the cost of production, no attempt has been made to calculate the present value of the amounts set down, because the data for such a calculation are not available. It will, however, be well if the reader remembers that the various amounts mentioned must have been equal at the very least to ten times these sums in the present day. Professor Middleton multiplies by ten, but when we find an expert scribe charging one penny and twopence for one leaf, and the ?commons? of another is set down at tenpence per week, we may safely reckon the multiplier at considerably more than ten in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The scribes and illuminators already mentioned were the individual workers, who were employed by corporations and men of wealth to produce books for their libraries; but the wholesale producers of books, who employed armies of scribes, must not be overlooked in this place.

Vespasiano di Bisticci of Florence (_b._ 1421) was the chief of these booksellers, and he a.s.sisted to form the three most famous libraries in Italy--the Laurentian in Florence, that of the Vatican, and the library of Federigo, Duke of Urbino, which was afterwards bought by Pope Alexander VII. and incorporated into the Vatican Library. Vespasiano was an author as well as a bookseller, and has recorded some of his doings in his _Vite degli Uomini Ill.u.s.tri_. He gives a detailed list of the works he obtained for the Duke of Urbino, which comprised all the known cla.s.sics, the Fathers, books on astrology, science, medicine, art, music, and all the Italian authors and poets. Vespasiano claimed that in this magnificent library, which cost 30,000 ducats, every author was found complete, and not a page of his writings was missing. Every book was written on vellum, and there was not a single one of which he was ashamed. Vespasiano was ever ready to form a library, as the following anecdote will prove.

Niccolo Niccoli having spent a long life and all his patrimony in collecting, left his books to Cosimo to found a public library. Cosimo built the fine pillared hall in the Convent of San Marco, and then proposed to form a worthy public library, of which the legacy of Niccoli should be the nucleus. He sent for Vespasiano for his advice, who said, ?You could not _buy_ books enough.? ?Then what would you do?? asked Cosimo. ?Have them written,? replied the bookseller. On which Cosimo gave the commission, and Vespasiano set forty-five scribes and illuminators to work, and furnished two hundred volumes in twenty-two months. Cosimo was so pleased with the books, that he employed the successful purveyor to supply the illuminated Psalters and Missals for the Church of the new Convent of San Marco.[22] No wonder, perhaps, that Vespasiano expresses his great dislike for the new-fangled art of printing. Every century has its own social convulsion, and thinks it the most important of all time. We talk of the revolutionary change made by the introduction of machinery in the nineteenth century, but we seldom realise how great a change in the occupations of the people took place in the fifteenth century, at the period of the invention of printing.

Large numbers of men entirely dependent on their labours as scribes were thrown out of work. Many of these men were members of influential bodies, who were not inclined to sit down idly under their misfortunes, so they pet.i.tioned against the use of printing; but fate was too powerful for them, and their endeavours to boycott the printing-press were not successful, even though Vespasiano di Bisticci said that Duke Federigo would have been ashamed to have a printed book in his library.

John of Trittenheim, Abbot of Spanheim, who is known in literature as Trithemius, said some hard things against printing in an essay, _De Laude Scriptorum Manualium_, thus--

?A work written on parchment could be preserved for a thousand years, while it is probable that no volume printed on paper will last for more than two centuries. Many important works have not been printed, and the copies required of these must be prepared by scribes. The scribe who ceases to perform his work because of the invention of printing can be no true lover of books, in that, regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books, while with the scribe this is a labour of love.?

When, however, Trithemius found it necessary to exhort his own monks, he was not able to speak very favourably of their love of books--

?There is, in my opinion, no manual labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books, and preparing what is needful for others who write them, for this holy labour will generally admit of being interrupted by prayer and of watching for the food of the soul no less than of the body. Need, also, urges us to labour diligently in writing books, if we desire to have at hand the means of usefully employing ourselves in spiritual studies. For you see that all the library of this monastery, which formerly was fine and large, has been so dissipated, sold, and made away with by the disorderly monks before us, that when I came I found but fourteen volumes.?[23]

Others were wiser than to oppose the new art, and many scribes, recognising the inevitable destruction of their trade, became printers.

Caxton?s master, Colard Mansion, was an extensive writer of ma.n.u.scripts before he took to the business of printing at Bruges. Much has been written upon famous collections of ma.n.u.scripts, and upon the individual works which compose them, but it is not often that these come to public auction, so that the particulars of prices are comparatively meagre. The grand collections of the British Museum and the Bodleian[24] are preserved in safety for the use of the learned, and we only know that they are of the greatest value. What they would fetch if sold now can only be guessed, and it would be merely frivolous to inquire. Three of the grandest collections in the Museum--the old Royal Library, the Cotton, which was only saved from slow destruction by the establishment of the British Museum, to which it was transferred, and the Harley, which the nation obtained for ?10,000--must now be of untold value.

The purchase by the British Museum of the library of Dr. Charles Burney greatly added to the completeness of the collections of Greek Cla.s.sics.

Among the ma.n.u.scripts is the wonderful Iliad of Homer on vellum, formerly belonging to Mr. Towneley, which, although it cannot be dated further back than the beginning of the fourteenth century, is supposed to be of the earliest date of the MSS. of the Iliad known to scholars. A committee appointed to consider the purchase of the library stated in their report: ?With respect to the value of the ma.n.u.scripts, the Homer is rated by the different witnesses at from ?600 to ?800, and one of them supposed it might even reach so high a price as ?1000;[25] the Greek rhetoricians are estimated at from ?340 to ?500; the larger copy of the Greek Gospels at ?200; the geography of Ptolemy at ?65; and the copy of Plautus at ?50. One witness estimates the whole of the ancient ma.n.u.scripts at upwards of ?2500, and an eminent bookseller at ?3000.?

?The books with ma.n.u.script notes, together with Dr. Burney?s _Variorum Compilation_, including the _Fragmenta Scenica Gr?ca_, are estimated by one at ?1000, and by another as high as ?1340.? It must be remembered that this was written in 1818, and these prices may be multiplied considerably at the present day.

Even those large private collections which have been in the market of late years have mostly been sold in bulk, so that little light has been thrown upon the current value of fine ma.n.u.scripts.

One of the best sources of information respecting present prices is to be found in Mr. Quaritch?s admirable catalogues of his collections of literary treasures.

When the treasures of Hamilton Palace were dispersed by public auction, the priceless collection of ma.n.u.scripts was sold by private contract to the German Government. The amount paid has never been officially announced, but it is believed to have reached the sum of ?75,000. Some of these ma.n.u.scripts were not required at Berlin, and they were sold in May 1889 by Messrs. Sotheby for ?15,189.

The gem of the collection was the fifteenth-century ma.n.u.script of Dante?s _Divina Commedia_, ill.u.s.trated with upwards of eighty drawings, attributed to Sandro Botticelli. Of it a writer in the _Times_ said, ?This priceless volume may, without exaggeration, be described as the most valuable ma.n.u.script in existence, from its artistic interest, for it stands alone as an example of a literary work of the first order ill.u.s.trated by an artist of the highest rank.?

It is impossible here even to register some of the many beautiful works that made the ma.n.u.scripts of the Duke of Hamilton so famous. Great dissatisfaction was felt by the British public when it was found that these treasures were to be transported to Berlin. Before the final decision was made, Mr. Ruskin, in a ?General statement explaining the nature and purposes of St. George?s Guild,? wrote--

?I hear that the library of Hamilton Palace is to be sold some time this spring. That library contains a collection of ma.n.u.scripts which the late Duke permitted me to examine at leisure, now some thirty years ago. It contains many ma.n.u.scripts for which I have no hope of contending successfully, even if I wished to do so, against the British Museum or the libraries of Paris and Vienna. But it contains also a very large number of ma.n.u.scripts, among which I could a.s.suredly choose some for which the partly exhausted general demand might be not extravagantly outbid, and I think the English public ought to have confidence enough in my knowledge of art and history to trust me with a considerable sum for this purpose.?

Mr. Quaritch, who entered into Mr. Ruskin?s plans, circulated this pamphlet, and asked for contributions to be sent to him, which he would forward to Mr. Ruskin. Had the Government of this country been of the same mind with Mr. Ruskin, these ma.n.u.scripts would not have been lost to the country.

The sale of the Hamilton ma.n.u.scripts to a foreign Government naturally caused those who were interested in these matters to feel great anxiety lest the Earl of Ashburnham?s ma.n.u.scripts, which it was known the owner wished to sell, should also be sent abroad. This collection consisted of upwards of three thousand ma.n.u.scripts in about four thousand volumes, and were made up of purchases from the Duke of Buckingham (Stowe) and M.

Libri; and of an Appendix consisting of separate ma.n.u.scripts purchased from time to time by the late Lord Ashburnham.

(1) The Stowe collection grew out of the library of MSS. formed by Thomas Astle, the pal?ographer, and Keeper of the Records in the Tower.

Astle directed by his will that his collection should be offered to the Marquis of Buckingham on certain specified terms, one of which was the payment of the sum of ?500. This amount was not of course any measure of their value, and the bequest was made in grat.i.tude to the Grenville family for favours which Astle had received from them. A room was built at Stowe by Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Soane to receive the collection, in which were charters, registers, wardrobe accounts, inventories, correspondence, and many items of the greatest historical value.

O?Conor?s Irish MSS. and the State Papers of Arthur Capel, Earl of Ess.e.x, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the reign of Charles II., afterwards found a home at Stowe. In April 1849 the Marquis of Chandos wrote to Sir Robert Peel, stating that he had recently had offers from private parties for the Stowe ma.n.u.scripts, and offering them to the British Museum. Sir Frederick Madden valued the collection at ?8300, but he was only authorised to treat with Lord Chandos for the Irish ma.n.u.scripts separately, and to seek for further information respecting other portions of the collection. In the meantime, however, the whole number were sold to Lord Ashburnham for ?8000.

(2) Libri collection. In June 1846 the Trustees of the British Museum applied for Treasury sanction to the expenditure of ?9000 in the purchase of the Libri ma.n.u.scripts, but this was refused. In September following renewed application was made for ?6600 for the collection, less the Napoleon papers valued at ?1000. The Treasury allowed ?6000 with commission to agents, but the negotiation failed, and Lord Ashburnham obtained the MSS. for ?8000.

(3) Barrois collection, chiefly consisting of French romances and poems, was offered to the British Museum in 1848 for ?6000. It was examined by the Keeper of the Ma.n.u.scripts, who recommended the purchase, but apparently no application was made to the Treasury, and the collection was soon afterwards sold to Lord Ashburnham for the same amount.

(4) Appendix of MSS. collected separately by Bertram, fourth Earl of Ashburnham, among which were some splendid illuminated ma.n.u.scripts.

With respect to some of these ma.n.u.scripts a difficulty had arisen, owing to M. L?opold Delisle?s claim that a large number of the ma.n.u.scripts in the Libri collection had been stolen from libraries in France by Libri while holding the office of Inspector-General of Libraries. M. Delisle also alleged that at least sixty of the Barrois ma.n.u.scripts were stolen from the Paris National Library. In November 1879 Lord Ashburnham offered to treat for the sale of his library of printed books and ma.n.u.scripts with the Museum alone, or jointly with the French Government, naming ?160,000 as the price for the whole, and stated that he had received an offer to that amount ?from another quarter.? The Trustees then asked whether Lord Ashburnham would treat for the ma.n.u.scripts alone, and his answer in January 1880 was that he had ascertained that the offer he had received of ?160,000 for the whole library from a private individual was intended for private speculation, and that the collection was worth a great deal more. This amount, which comes to about ?500 for each ma.n.u.script, seems to be very large, but competent authorities have agreed to the valuation. At any rate, the Treasury was not prepared to buy the whole at such a price, and the Princ.i.p.al Librarian treated for the Stowe collection alone, the price of which Lord Ashburnham fixed at ?30000.[26] In the end these were purchased for the nation.

For many years the late Sir Thomas Phillipps was an omnivorous collector of ma.n.u.scripts, and his collections were vast. They are gradually being sold by auction. Several portions have pa.s.sed under the hammer of Messrs. Sotheby, and others are still to follow.

A very fine collection of illuminated ma.n.u.scripts was gathered in a very short period by William Morris. It is fortunate that a collection made by one who knew so well what to buy is not to be dispersed or taken out of the kingdom. As long as it remains intact it will be a worthy monument of an enthusiastic lover of art who, while teaching the present age, was not forgetful of the history of the earlier workers in the same spirit.

We cannot register prices of such priceless ma.n.u.scripts as the Gospels of St. Cuthbert, for two centuries at Lindisfarne, and now among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum, or the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin--both of the seventh century; but some few books of great interest which have been sold by auction may be mentioned here.

The chief of these is the splendid ma.n.u.script of the Bible in the British Museum, said to have been presented by Alcuin to Charlemagne.

The vicissitudes of this book are very remarkable. It was confiscated during the French Revolution, and eventually came into the possession of M. Speyr Pa.s.savant of Basle, who unavailingly offered it for a large sum to the chief libraries of Europe. It was offered to the Trustees of the British Museum, first for ?12,000, then for ?8000, and lastly for ?6500.

The unfounded claims of the proprietor, who appears to have been very much of a charlatan, appear to have damaged the repute of the MS., and it remained on his hands. On 27th April 1836 the volume was put up to auction at Evans?s rooms, and was described in six pages of a catalogue in which it was the chief lot. It was catalogued as the Emperor Charlemagne?s Bible--a ma.n.u.script on vellum by Alcuin, completed A.D.

800, presented to Charlemagne A.D. 801 at the ceremony of his coronation, and mentioned in his will. The date is not undisputed, and it is supposed by some to be of about forty years later. The statement that this Bible is mentioned in the Emperor?s will is absolutely denied.

The price registered in Evans?s sale catalogue is ?1500, and the purchaser is given as Scordet, but the book was really bought in, and it is said that few of the biddings for it were genuine. After this failure fresh overtures were made to the British Museum, and in the end it was bought for that library for ?750, which must be considered a small price for so splendid and interesting a book. There was some correspondence on this Bible in the _Gentleman?s Magazine_, in which Sir Frederick Madden took part. These letters are reprinted in Gomme?s _Gentleman?s Magazine Library_ (?Literary Curiosities,? 1888, pp.

234-64). Another historical ma.n.u.script of particular beauty which has been several times sold by auction, and now safely reposes at the British Museum, is the famous so-called Bedford Missal (really Book of Hours), written and illuminated for John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France under Henry VI., to whom he presented the book in the year 1430.

It pa.s.sed into the hands of Henry II. of France, and long subsequently into those of Lady Worsley (widow of Sir Robert Worsley), from whom it was purchased by the Earl of Oxford, who bequeathed it to his daughter, the d.u.c.h.ess of Portland. At the latter?s sale in 1786 it was bought by James Edwards the bookseller for ?213, 3s. At Edwards?s sale in 1815 it was bought for ?687, 15s. by the Marquis of Blandford, who afterwards sold it to Mr. Broadley. At Broadley?s sale in 1833 Sir John Tobin bought it for ?1100. Sir John?s son sold it to the bookseller from whom the British Museum purchased it in 1852.

Two instances of most interesting ma.n.u.scripts sold at very inadequate prices may here be recorded. One of the most distinguished among the Ashburnham ma.n.u.scripts was one known as the Albani Missal. It is a ma.n.u.script of offices, and was executed apparently for Alemanno Salviati, gonfalonier of Florence and brother-in-law of Lorenzo de?

Medici, and given by him to one of his relatives of the house of Baroncelli. This beautiful volume contains five full-page miniatures, each the work of a master. The first is by the hand of Amico Aspertini, of Bologna, the pupil of Francia; the next is attributed to Lorenzo di Credi; the third and fourth of high excellence, though una.s.signed; and the fifth by Perugino, signed ?Petrus Perusinus pinxit.? For this artistic treasure Mr. James Dennistoun gave ?20 in Rome in the year 1838. When he had purchased it he found that opposition to its leaving Italy would be made on the part of the Roman authorities, so he had it unbound and divided, and got it sent to England privately a few pages at a time. He afterwards sold it to Lord Ashburnham for ?700. These facts were printed in the _Times_ in 1883 by a cousin of Mr. Dennistoun.

Mr. Madan gives in his ?Books in Ma.n.u.script,? 1893, a very interesting account of a bargain obtained by the Bodleian Library, which account is here reproduced in a somewhat condensed form. ?Six years ago [1887] a little octavo volume, in worn brown binding, stood on the shelves of a small parish library in Suffolk, but was turned out and offered at the end of a sale at Sotheby?s, presumably as being unreadable to country folk.? It was described in the catalogue as ?Latin Gospels of the Fourteenth Century, with English Illuminations.? For the sum of ?6 it pa.s.sed into the Bodleian Library, and came to be catalogued as an ordinary accession. It was noticed that the writing was of the eleventh century, and that the illuminations were valuable specimens of old English work of the same century, comprising figures of the four evangelists, of the Byzantine type, which was common in the west of Europe; the drapery, however, colouring, and accessories were purely English. The book itself was seen to be not the complete Gospels, but such portions as were used in the service of the Ma.s.s at different times of the year. On a fly-leaf was found a Latin poem, describing how the book had dropped in the water and was brought up by a soldier, who plunged in after it. Surprise was expressed that the book was uninjured, save a slight contraction of two of the leaves, and to this expression was added, ?May the king and pious queen be saved for ever, whose book was but now saved from the waves!? Curiosity was felt as to the ident.i.ty of this king and queen, when the difficulty was solved by a reference to Forbes-Leith?s ?Life of St. Margaret of Scotland,? where this pa.s.sage occurs: ?She had a book of the Gospels beautifully adorned with gold and precious stones, and ornamented with the figures of the four evangelists painted and gilt.... She had always felt a particular attachment for this book, more so than for any of the others which she usually read.?

Then follows a story almost identical with the one given above, which proves that the identical book is now preserved in the Bodleian Library.