Wheatley Henry Benjamin
Prices of Books
“A number of the most curious, rare, and intrinsically valuable books—the very insertion of which in a bookseller’s catalogue would probably now make a hundred bibliomaniacs start from their homes by starlight, in order to come in for the first picking—a number of volumes of this description are huddled together in one lot, and all these classed under the provoking running title of ‘Bundles of Books,’ ‘Bundles of stitcht Books.’”36
Smith was one of the earliest collectors of Caxtons, and eleven books produced by our first printer sold for £3, 4s. 2d. at his sale. But one of the greatest points of interest connected with Smith’s library is that it included the books of Humphrey Dyson, collected at a much earlier date. Hearne notes in his “Collections”—
“That Mr. Rich. Smith’s rare and curious collection of books was began first by Mr. Humphrey Dyson, a publick notary, living in the Poultry. They came to Mr. Smith by marriage. This is the same Humphrey Dyson that assisted Howes in his continuation of Stow’s ‘Survey of London,’ ed. folio.”
Under date 4th September 1715 Hearne says—
“Mr. Richard Smith’s Catalogue that is printed contains a very noble and very extraordinary collection of books. It was begun first in the time of King Hen. VIII., and comeing to Mr. Smith, he was so very diligent and exact in continueing and improving, that hardly anything curious escaped him. He had made the best collection that possibly he could of Erasmus’s works.”37
In another place Hearne describes Dyson as—
“A person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius in the matter of books, as may appear from many libraries; there being books chiefly in old English, almost in every library, that have belonged to him, with his name upon them.”38
The following interesting entry from Smith’s catalogue corroborates Hearne’s statement as to Smith’s acquisition of Dyson’s books—
“115. Six several catalogues of all such books, touching the state ecclesiastical as temporal of the realm of England, which were published upon several occasions, in the reigns of K. Henry the VIIth and VIIIth, Philip and Mary, Q. Elizabeth, K. James and Charles I., collected by Mr. H. Dyson: out of whose library was gathered by Mr. Smith a great part of the rarities of this catalogue.”
This lot only fetched seven shillings and sixpence.
The number of sales seem now to have increased annually, but it was some years before a library that could rank with Richard Smith’s was sold. In April 1683 the books of Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester, were sold (twenty-two years after his death) “by Samuel Carr, at his house of the King’s Head in St. Paul’s Churchyard.” About this time auction sales took place in various parts of the country, and Edward Millington was largely employed as a peripatetic auctioneer. In September 1684 he sold books at Stourbridge Fair (Bibliotheca Sturbitchiana). In 1686 two sales occurred at Trumpington (Obadiah Sedgwick in March, and William Whitwood in May) and two at Cambridge (Dr. Edmond Castell in June, and Rev. J. Chamberlaine, of St. John’s College, at Stourbridge Fair, in September). When we forget the change that has taken place in the value of money, and express our surprise that rare books should only realise a few shillings, we should note that the cost of the hire of thirteen carts for conveying Dr. Castell’s books from Emmanuel College to the sign of the Eagle and Child, where they were sold, was only three shillings.39 In 1685 and 1686 occurred the famous sales of the stock of Richard Davis, the Oxford bookseller, which was satirised in the Auctio Davisiana, noticed in an earlier chapter.
In 1682 William Cooper published a list of book-sales up to that date, and again a fuller list in 1687, which contained a note of seventy-four sales in the ten years 1676-86. The following note is printed on the back of page 33 of Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecæ viri cujusdam Literati, 14th February 1686-87—
“To gratifie those Gentlemen whose curiosities may lead them to make perfect their Collection, I have caused to be printed the names of those persons whose libraries have been sold by auction, and the series of the time when” [1676-1686].
This list is reprinted by Hartshorne in his “Book Rarities of the University of Cambridge,” 1829 (pp. 454-57), and it forms the text for two excellent articles by Mr. A. W. Pollard in Bibliographica.
In 1687 Millington sold the valuable library of Dr. Thomas Jacomb, a Nonconformist minister (Bibliotheca Jacombiana), which realised £1300; and in February of the following year the library of a counsellor of the Parliaments of Montpelier, which had been brought from France to be sold in England (Bibliotheca Mascoviana).
T. Bentley and B. Walford sold in November 1687 an interesting library of an anonymous but distinguished defunct—Bibliotheca Illustrissima, which is described as follows in the Address to the Reader—
“If the catalogue here presented were only of common books and such as were easie to be had, it would not have been very necessary to have prefaced anything to the reader; but since it appears in the world with circumstances which no auction in England (perhaps) ever had before, nor is it probable that the like should frequently happen again, it would seem an oversight if we should neglect to advertise the reader of them. The first is, that it comprises the main part of the library of that famous secretary, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh: which considered, must put it out of doubt that these books are excellent in their several kinds and well chosen. The second is, that it contains a greater number of rare manuscripts than ever yet were offered together in this way, many of which are rendered the more valuable by being remarked upon by the hand of the said great man.”
A considerable number of sales took place between this date and the end of the century, but few were of any particular mark until the fine library of Dr. Francis Bernard came to the hammer in 1698.
Millington continued his travels in the country, and sold, among others, the library of Mrs. Elizabeth Oliver at Norwich in 1689, and some modern English books at Abingdon in 1692; and John Howell sold the Rev. George Ashwell’s library at Oxford in 1696.
Dr. Francis Bernard, physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, was also physician to James II. He was a good judge of books, and collected a very fine library, which was sold by auction in October 1698 at his late dwelling in Little Britain. Dibdin says he was “a stoic in bibliography. Neither beautiful binding nor amplitude of margin ever delighted his eye or rejoiced his heart; for he was a stiff and straightforward reader, and learned in literary history beyond all his contemporaries. His collection was copious and excellent.”
The account given of the doctor in the Address to the Reader prefixed to the catalogue is of considerable interest—
“The character of the person whose collection this was is so well known, that there is no occasion to say much of him, nor, to any man of judgment that inspects the Catalogue, of the collection itself. Something, however, it becomes us to say of both; and this, I think, may with truth and modesty enough be said, that 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 to be thus disposed of as this before us. Certain it is, this library contains not a few which never appeared in any auction here before, nor indeed, as I have heard him say, for aught he knew—and he knew as well as any man living—in any printed Catalogue in the world. It was very seldom that he bought any book without some very particular reason. For if any man died, he certainly knew what we call the secret history of learning so well, that if there were but one single passage in an author for which only it was to be valued, it never escaped him. Being a person who collected his books, and not for ostentation or ornament, he seemed no more solicitous about their dress than his own; and therefore you’ll find that a gilt back or a large margin was very seldom any inducement to him to buy. ’Twas sufficient to him that he had the book.... He himself was not a mere nomenclator, and versed only in title-pages, but had made that just and laudable use of his books which would become all those that set up for collectors.... Give me leave to say this of him upon my own knowledge, that he never grudged his money in procuring, nor his time or labour in perusing any book which he thought could be any ways instructive to him; and having the felicity of a memory always faithful, always officious, which never forsook him, though attacked by frequent and severe sickness, and by the worst of all diseases, old age, his desire for knowledge attended him to the last, and he pursued his studies with equal vigour and application to the very extremity of his life.”
He had thirteen Caxtons, which sold altogether for less than two guineas, less than these books fetched at Richard Smith’s sale. A curious volume of Tracts, consisting of “The Bellman’s Night Walks” (1632), “The Bellman of London” (1608), “Life of Ned Browne,” “Cut Purse,” &c., sold for 2s. 8d.; Stubbe’s “Anatomie of Abuses” (1585), for 8d.; and Tusser’s “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry” (1590) for 4d. In spite of these low prices, the total amount of the sale was £1600, the expenses of the sale—4s. in the pound = £320—being deducted.
The catalogue was charged 2s. 6d.
The last sale in the seventeenth century to be recorded is that of John Lloyd, Bishop of St. Davids, sold in 1699 by John Bullord at Tom’s Coffee-House.
When auctions were first started conditions of sale were formulated, and with the exception of a little elaboration, they remain pretty much what they were at first; but there were certain peculiarities which are worthy of mention.
The catalogues were not at first divided into day’s sales, but as many lots as possible were sold in the time fixed for the sale. The hours were usually from nine to twelve, and from two to six. Sometimes the sales only took place in the evening. In 1681 we learn that an average sale of 544 lots in a day was considered satisfactory. In the Conditions of Sale printed in the Catalogue of Seaman’s library we read—
“That the Auction will begin the 31st of October at the Deceased Dr’s house in Warwick Court in Warwick Lane punctually at nine Of the Clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, and this to continue daily until all the books be sold.”
The early hour was found a disadvantage, and books often sold for low prices at the beginning of sales, so that Cooper was forced to make a rule that the sale should not be commenced unless there were twenty present. At this time biddings of a penny were common.
Two great evils came to light on the first institution of auctions; one was due to the buyers, and the other to the auctioneers. It was found that in cases where the buyer thought he had given more for a book than was wise, he often forgot to pay and fetch away the books. Millington refers specially to this in 1681—
“I question not but the well disposed, and the Learned will give us such incouragement in the Sale by Bidding in some measure to the value of the Books so exposed, as may further incourage and keep on foot such a commendable and serviceable a way of sale (as this of Auction is) to the great purposes of promoting Learning and Knowledge. Which, when I consider, I cannot but wonder that so many persons have appeared at our auctions, and buy with a great freedom to the injury of others (that are truly conscientious to pay for, and fetch away the Books so bought); yet in most auctions have hitherto neglected to fetch away and pay for their own. To the end therefore that they may know, we will not be damaged after so great expences, as inevitably attends the management of an auction; we do intend to prosecute them according to the law if forthwith they do not send for their books, or give us some reasonable satisfaction. To prevent any abuses for the future that may happen to other gentlemen who suffer by this unhandsome practice (of having Books bought out of their hands by persons that never will, or perhaps never designed to fetch them away), we shall, at a convenient time, for the further satisfaction of gentlemen, give an account of their names, and desire their absence if any of them happen to be present.”40
The other evil was the attempt of the booksellers to get rid of some of their old stock by introducing it into the sales of collectors’ libraries. This trick has already been alluded to.
The frequenters of auctions seem to have been very jealous of being bid against by any one interested in the sale. This jealousy found voice in the complaints of Wanley and others at Bridges’ sale in 1726.
The lots were not numbered throughout in the catalogues, but the octavos, quartos, and folios were each numbered separately, the number of each section running on from the previous day’s sale. This is very confusing, as when you look at the end for the purpose of finding the total number of the lots, you only find the number of folios in the sale. Millington found that it was not advisable to bid for books, in case it might be supposed that he was running them up in price, and Mr. Pollard believes that he adopted a plan of getting men to bid for him.
In corroboration of this view Mr. Pollard refers to a copy of the catalogue of the libraries of Button, Owen, and Hoel, 7th November 1681, in the British Museum which belonged to Millington. It has two receipts by persons whose names are among the bidders for money received from Millington for various books. “At first sight this seems a reversal of what we should expect, but after the first few sales the auctioneers had renounced the right of making bids themselves, lest they should be accused of running up prices, and Millington had obviously employed these friends to bid for him.”41
Another evil connected with auctions comes from knocks out, which are thoroughly dishonest, and in fact, criminal, being, as they are, a form of conspiracy, but the agreements of two persons not to bid against one another are not necessarily to be condemned. Mr. Henry Stevens was very urgent against any kind of agreement, and in his reminiscences amusingly describes his frustration of a knock-out; and it has been said that when the Duke of Roxburghe and Lord Spencer made an agreement, they were parties to a knock-out; but this view is founded on a fallacy, viz., that whatever price a book fetches at public auction is the proper price. We know, however, that this is not correct; for instance, the Valdarfer Boccaccio fetched its huge price at the Roxburghe sale because two great book-buyers with long purses bid against one another. When one of these buyers died and the book was again in the market, seven years after the first sale, the survivor obtained the book at a smaller price. Hence who is to say whether £2260 or £918 is the actual value of the book!
CHAPTER VI
AUCTION SALES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The sales of the last quarter of the seventeenth century are of the greatest interest in the history of the subject, but they are not of any great value as guides to present prices, for circumstances and tastes have greatly changed. The sales were largely those of the working libraries of theologians, and the books which their owners found of use in their studies sold well, while books in other classes which have now taken their place in public esteem fetched prices which seem to us very small. Among the number of sales noticed in the last chapter, two only stand out as the libraries of true collectors in the modern acceptation of the term, that is, of those who collect for love of the books rather than from an appreciation of their utility. Much the same conditions ruled during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, although the library of Charles Bernard, serjeant-surgeon to Queen Anne and brother of Dr. Francis Bernard, previously referred to, was sold in March 1711 at the Black Boy Coffee-House in Ave Maria Lane, and the sale of the vast collection of Thomas Rawlinson commenced in 1721. Then followed the sale of John Bridges’ library in February 1726, but the middle of the century was passed when the great sale of Dr. Richard Mead occurred. This (1754-55), when compared with Askew’s sale in 1775, may be said to mark an era in bibliography. These two great physicians were friends with similar tastes. We are, therefore, able to gauge the considerable growth of the taste for book-collecting during the few years that parted these two sales. Askew bought many books at Mead’s sale, and when the same volumes came to be sold at his own sale they realised twice and thrice the prices he had given. We shall see in the register of the sales after Askew’s day how the prices gradually advanced, until we arrive at the culmination of the bibliomaniacal spirit in the Roxburghe sale of 1812.
We will now enumerate some of the principal sales which took place during the eighteenth century, which led up to the long list of sales which have formed so marked a feature of the nineteenth century.
Charles Bernard’s library, sold in 1711, was said by Oldys to contain “the fairest and best editions of the classics.” Swift, in his “Journal to Stella” (19th March) wrote, “I went to-day to see poor Charles Bernard’s books, and I itch to lay out nine or ten pounds for some fine editions of fine authors”; and on the 29th he adds, “I walked to-day into the city and went to see the auction of poor Charles Bernard’s books. They were in the middle of the Physic books, so I bought none; and they are so dear, I believe I shall buy none.”
The sale of the library of Thomas Britton, the well-known small-coal man of Clerkenwell, in January 1715, deserves mention on account of the worthiness of its owner. The books were sold by auction at St. Paul’s Coffee-House by Thomas Ballard, and the sale catalogue consists of forty closely-printed pages in quarto. There were 664 lots in octavo, 274 in quarto, and 102 in folio, besides 50 pamphlets and 23 manuscripts. This was the second library Britton had collected, for some years before his death he sold the first one by auction.
Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725) was one of the most insatiable of book collectors, and he left the largest library that had been collected up to his time. His chambers were so filled that his bed had to be moved into a passage, and he took London House, in Aldersgate Street, to accommodate his ever-increasing library. Oldys says of him—
“If his purse had been much wider he had a passion beyond it, and would have been driven to part with what he was so fond of, such a pitch of curiosity or dotage he was arrived at upon a different edition, a fairer copy, a larger paper than twenty of the same sort he might be already possessed of. In short, his covetousness after those books he had not increased with the multiplication of those he had, and as he lived so he died in his bundles, piles, and bulwarks of paper, in dust and cobwebs, at London House.”42
He did, in fact, commence the sale of his library before his death, and the first part was sold in December 1721. The catalogue of the whole library occupied sixteen parts, the last being sold in 1734. A complete set of these catalogues is very rare, and the lists of them in the various bibliographical works are mostly incomplete. There is, however, a set in the Bodleian Library. The books in the first five parts sold for £2409, and the manuscripts alone took sixteen days of March 1734 to sell, and went cheap. Hearne writes in his Diary (9th November 1734)—
“The MSS. in Dr. Rawlinson’s last auction of his brother Thomas’s books went extraordinary cheap, and those that bought had great penny worths. The Doctor purchas’d many himself, at which here and there one were disgusted, tho’ all the company supported the Doctor in it, that as a creditor he had a right equal to any other. My friend Mr. Tom Brome, that honest gentleman of Ewithington in Herefordshire in a letter to the Doctor, says that he cannot but wonder at the low rates of most of the MSS., and adds ‘had I been in place I should have been tempted to have laid out a pretty deal of money, without thinking myself at all touched with bibliomania.’”43
On 10th November Hearne further writes—
“Dr. Rawlinson by the sale of his brother’s books hath not rais’d near the money expected. For it seems they have ill answer’d, however good books; the MSS. worse, and what the prints will do is as yet undetermin’d.”44
It is worthy of mention here that Dr. Rawlinson purchased Hearne’s Diaries for a hundred guineas from the widow and executrix of Dr. William Bedford, to whom they had been given by Hearne,45 and he bequeathed them with other property to the University of Oxford. The auctioneers who dispersed Thomas Rawlinson’s large collections were Charles Davis and Thomas Ballard.
The sale of the valuable library of John Bridges at his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn by Mr. Cock, in February 1726, was an event of much literary interest. The number of lots was 4313, occupying twenty-seven days, and the total proceeds of the sale were £4001. This is therefore worthy of note as the first sale at which the prices averaged nearly one pound per lot.
There was much dissatisfaction among the buyers at the high prices, and a conspiracy to “bull” the market was suspected.
Humphry Wanley expressed his opinion strongly on this point—
“Feb. 9, 1725-6.—Went to Mr. Bridges’s chambers, but could not see the three fine MSS. again, the Doctor his brother having locked them up. He openly bid for his own books, merely to enhance their price, and the auction proves to be, what I thought it would become, very knavish.”
“Feb. 11, 1725-6.—Yesterday at five I met Mr. Noel and tarried long with him; we settled then the whole affair touching his bidding for my Lord [Oxford] at the roguish auction of Mr. Bridges’s books. The Reverend Doctor one of the brothers hath already displayed himself so remarkably as to be both hated and despised, and a combination among the booksellers will soon be against him and his brother-in-law, a lawyer. These 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 commissions when they shall be hoisted up to too high a price. Yet I desired that my Lord may have the Russian Bible, which I know full well to be a very rare and a very good book.”46
The frontispiece to the sale catalogue exhibited an oak felled, and persons bearing away the branches, signifying that when the oak is cut down every man gets wood. Nichols, referring to the motto, Δρυὸς πεσούσης πᾶς ἀνὴρ ξυλεύεται, speaks of it as “an affecting memento to the collectors of great libraries, who cannot or do not leave them to some public accessible repository.”47
Besides the sale catalogue, there was a catalogue raisonné of Bridges’s library, a large paper of which, bound in old blue morocco, and ruled with red lines, Dr. Gosset bought for Dibdin for four shillings, and the latter styles it a happy day when he received it.
In 1731 was sold, at St. Paul’s Coffee-House, the extensive library of Anthony Collins, the famous freethinker and author, and a friend of Locke. His books were sold in two divisions. Part 1 of the catalogue contained 3451 lots, and part 2, 3442.
The sale of Dr. Thomas Pellet’s library in 1744 is of especial interest as the first undertaken by Samuel Baker, the founder of the house of Sotheby.
In 1746 two sales of note took place, those of Sir Christopher Wren and Michael Maittaire, the scholar and bibliographer. The following advertisement of the former is from the Daily Advertiser of 26th October 1748—
“To be sold by auction, by Messrs. Cock and Langford, in ye Great Piazza, Covent Garden, this and ye following evening, the curious and entire libraries of ye ingenious architect Sir Christopher Wren, Knt., and Christopher Wren, Esq., his son, late of Hampton Court; both deceased. Consisting of great variety of Books of Architecture, Antiquities, Histories, etc., in Greek, Latin, French, and English; together with some few lots of Prints. The said books may be viewed at Mr. Cock’s in ye Great Piazza aforesaid, till ye time of sale, which will begin each evening at 5 o’clock precisely. Catalogues of which may be had gratis at ye place of sale aforesaid.”
Maittaire’s library was sold in two parts, in November 1748 and January 1749, by Mr. Cock, and occupied forty-five evenings in the selling. For some reason or other the books appear to have been sacrificed, and they realised little more than £700. One reason was, that they were not very presentable in appearance. The auctioneer writes in the “advertisement” to the catalogue—
“Tho’ the books in their present condition make not the most ostentatious appearance, yet like the late worthy possessor of them, however plain their outside may be, they contain within an invaluable treasure of ingenuity and learning. In fine, this is (after fifty years’ diligent search and labour in collecting) the entire library of Mr. Maittaire, whose judgement in the choice of books as it ever was confessed, so are they undoubtedly far beyond whatever I can attempt to say in their praise. In exhibiting them thus to the public, I comply with the will of my deceased friend, and in printing the catalogue from his own copy, just as he left it (tho’ by so doing it is more voluminous), I had an opportunity not only of doing the justice I owe to his memory, but also of gratifying the curious.”
According to a very interesting account of the sale in Beloe’s “Anecdotes” (vol. v. pp. 389-452), it appears that if “the curious” attended the sale, they did not do much to raise the prices. Beloe writes, “The library of Michael Maittaire was of incalculable value, from its great variety, from the number of early printed books which it contained, from the extraordinary collection of Greek and Latin tracts by the famous French printers of the sixteenth century, from the most uncommon books in criticism which it exhibited, and lastly, from the high reputation of its possessor.” And, in conclusion, he says, “Such a collection was never before exhibited for public sale, and perhaps never will again.”
A striking instance of the absurdly low prices obtained for the books is that of Homeri Batrachomyomachia (Venet. per Leonicum Cretensem, 1486, 4to), which sold for sixteen shillings. In this copy a subsequent possessor wrote the following note—
“This book is so extremely rare that I never saw any other copy of it except that of Mons. de Boze, who told me he gave 650 livres for it. Mr. Smith, our consul at Venice, wrote me word that he had purchased a copy, but that it was imperfect. Lord Oxford offered Mr. Maittaire fifty guineas for this identical copy.”
Askew’s copy, supposed to be the same as this, fetched at his sale fourteen guineas.
Martialis, apud Vindelinum Spirensem—sine anno—which is described as “one of the rarest of rare books,” only brought four shillings and sixpence. The editio princeps of Plautus (Venet. per Joh. de Colonia et Vindelinum Spirensem, 1472, folio) was sold for sixteen shillings, while the Pinelli copy fetched £36. These are no exceptions to the rule, for Beloe mentions a large number of rare books which only fetched a shilling or two shillings each.
The great library of Richard Mead, M.D., was dispersed by Samuel Baker in November and December 1754 and in April and May 1755. In the first sale there were 3280 lots in 28 days, which realised £2475, 18s. 6d. The second sale consisted of 6741 lots in 29 days, realising £3033, 1s. 6d., making the totals for the two sales, 57 days, 10,021 lots, amount of sale £5509. It is usually stated that Mead’s library consisted of 10,000 volumes, but there must have been at least 30,000 volumes. The numbering of lots in Mead’s sale followed the confusing rule adopted at the first printing of auction catalogues, viz., the leaving three separate numberings of octavos, quartos, and folios. As already said, this was the first really renowned sale that took place in England, and there can be little doubt that the owner spent considerably more money in the collection of his books than they realised after his death. Johnson said of Mead; that he lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man. The dispersion of his library was a loss to the world, for every scholar had been allowed access to it during the owner’s life.
The novelist Fielding’s library was sold by Baker in 1755. The sale consisted of 653 lots, occupied four nights, and realised £364.
Richard Rawlinson, D.D., younger brother of Thomas Rawlinson, died on the 6th of April 1755, and his large and valuable library was sold by Baker in March of the following year. The sale of the books lasted fifty days, and there was a second sale of pamphlets, books of prints, &c., which occupied ten days. The prices realised for old English literature were very small, and the total of the whole sale was under £1200.
The year 1756 was remarkable for the sale of the library of Martin Folkes by Samuel Baker. It consisted of 5126 lots, and realised £3091. Martin Folkes occupied a prominent position in the literary and scientific worlds as President of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries. He was more a generally accomplished man than a man of science, and it has been the fashion to laugh at his pretensions to the chair of the Royal Society, but his contemporaries thought well of him. Dr. Jurin, secretary of the Royal Society, said that “The greatest man that ever lived (Sir Isaac Newton) singled him out to fill the chair, and to preside in the Society when he himself was so frequently prevented by indisposition; and that it was sufficient to say of him that he was Sir Isaac’s friend.”
