THE BOOKWORM.*

"THERE is a deal of fine, confused eating on a sheep's head," said the Ettrick Shepherd, in Noctes Ambrosianz. And there is a deal of fine, confused reading in the book before us, for all who like books, and the ways of those who buy, or sell, or bind, or illustrate them. The arrangement of its pleasant contents is desultory, and the index is hardly full enough. But this is the head and front of the anonymous editor's shortcomings. It is a pleasure, therefore, to congratulate him on having found in Mr. Elliot Stock a publisher whose taste has done full justice to the Bookworm. Praise rather than criticism is what this interesting miscellany calls for, and the end of this notice will be attained if it succeeds in indicating the truth of that remark.

The volume opens with "Some Bookstalling Reminiscences," and every book-hunter will agree with the writer's assertion that "London is far and away the bookstaller's paradise, the happy hunting-grounds of the genuine book-collector?' But when he says that there is no more profitable a pastime than bookstalling, his words are open to misconstruction. The man who buys books simply for use, and who does not mind broken sets, will find this pastime profitable indeed. But be who buys to sell again, will nearly always be disappointed. The exceptions, however, to this rule are sometimes very striking_ The present writer knows a man who bought an edition of Paradise Lost in ten books for threepence. The selling- price thereof would have been ten pounds at least ; but the book-finder was robbed of the fruits of his luck by one of those methodically mad conveyers who are described in this book under the head of " biblio-kleptomaniacs." It is a far cry from book-hunters of the humbler sort to a man like Mr. Bernard Quaritch, who may be called, we take it, "the grand Napoleon of the realms" of book-buying. An interesting sketch of his invaluable, but far from priceless, collection of forty thousand volumes, throws no light upon the question whether this gentleman can sell with profit the wares which he buys so boldly. It seems likely that he would not "laugh with alien lips" at Butler's— "Fortune the audacious doth juvare,

But lets the timidons miscarry."

Yet we should not, of course, venture to hint at such a matter, did we not read here concerning the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw, of Cambridge, that this collector, who could "give points" to Mr. Quaritch, sold the best of his own books by auction once, and got exactly sixpence for every pound he had spent in their purchase. Mr. Bradshaw held for long the important position of University Librarian, and his "professional memory" was amazing. It is possible that the old scholastic maxim, which associated weakness of judgment with strength of memory, may point the moral of his failure. And it is curious that Mr. Bradshaw, with all his book-buying, never bought a book which he did not read. For, as the author of the lively essay on "Buying Books" observes, a genuine book-collector would consider it the sheerest folly to attempt to read the books which he accumulates. A wealthy brother of Bishop Heber possessed thousands, he tells us, of volumes he had never seen, and on his death-bed wrote orders to his agents to purchase more. There are other passions than love which are strong as death, and we should like to hear what the Bishop's brother had to say for himself before ranking him on a level with the men who collect walking-sticks or postage-stamps.

There are many pleasant pages about bookbinding in this Bookworm. An eminent French Chancellor, Jean Grolier, was the founder of the French school of ornamental binding. He set the words, "lo Grolierii et amicorum," in one corner of his books. But this inscription did not mean that his friends had leave and licence to borrow those volumes, which were beautiful exceedingly in the costly and elaborate bindings to which his patronymic gives a name. It meant that he was fond of gathering his friends together in his library, where they "talked books, and bindings, and editions, and title. pages, and colophons, often till the gray dawn came timidly through the stained-glass window." The way of such- men • The Bookworm: an illustrated Treasury of Old-Time Literature. London : Elliot Stack.

with such books might be as hard to follow as the way of a serpent upon a rock. The way of Charles Lamb with his was of another kind, for we find him quoted in the section immediately preceding the above as stating that a book reads the better when the topography of its plots and notes is thoroughly mastered, and when we "can trace the dirt in it, to having read it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe." From the curiosities of book-lore with which this volume is studded, we select the following as a specimen :—

" There is a curious frontispiece to an edition of the classics, published on the Continent. The copper-plate which faces the title-page, represents, on one side, Christ upon the Cross, and upon the other, a figure of the author, from whose month a label seems to issue forth, with the following words inscribed on it: Lord Jesus, lovest Thou me ? ' This question is answered by another label affixed to the month of the Person addressed : Highly-famed, excellent, and most learned Rector Seger, imperial poet, and well- deserving master of the school at Wittenberg, thou lmowest that I love Thee.'" It is far from clear why the above should be labelled, as it

is, "A Literary Echo." Yet, oddly enough, it is one, in a sense. For, by an oversight, the curious frontispiece is described,

totidem verbis, on a previous page.

Amongst the books which were sold in Henry Grattan's library were two which, we read, were almost sure to be

secured for Paris. One of these deals with The Crimes of the German Emperors. It belonged to the French Imperial Library,

bears on the cover the gilded stamp of St. Cloud, and on the fly-leaf has the following endorsement :—" This book was taken by me out of Buonaparte's Library at St. Cloud by right of conquest. 1815. J. Grattan." An editorial note would be welcome here. For we are left in doubt whether this book was secured for Paris, and in doubt when the sale took place. It began, we are told, on Tuesday, November 6th, nearly seventy years after the death of the great Irish patriot. This is not precise enough ; and it would be interesting to learn if Mr. J. Grattan won what he was pleased to miscall his "right of conquest" at Waterloo.

Hints about books which are worth buying "for the rise" are

always interesting. Mr. Frederick Cattle is of opinion that Frederick Tennyson's Days and Hours would be cheaply

bought by the six or seven shillings for which it can still be had. And he also is of opinion that the early wise will buy

the In Memoriam, Poems, and Princess, which were once volumes of the "Parchment Library." An interesting and amusing notice of Bailey's Dictionary makes us think that this too is a book which the early wise will buy. For it is not only a most entertaining book for desultory reading, says

"W. R.," but it has preserved from oblivion a large number of archaic words and phrases, and is indispensable to students of the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.