Books and Bookmen. Lang Andrew
both died in 1652. They did not depart before publishing (1628), in grand format, a desirable work on fencing, Thibault’s ‘Académie de l’Espée.’ This Tibbald also killed by the book. John and Daniel Elzevir came next. They brought out the ‘Imitation’ (Thomæ a Kempis canonici regularis ord. S. Augustini De Imitatione Christi, libri iv.); I wish by taking thought I could add eight millimetres to the stature of my copy. In 1655 Daniel joined a cousin, Louis, in Amsterdam, and John stayed in Leyden. John died in 1661; his widow struggled on, but her son Abraham (1681) let all fall into ruins. Abraham died 1712. The Elzevirs of Amsterdam lasted till 1680, when Daniel died, and the business was wound up. The type, by Christopher Van Dyck, was sold in 1681, by Daniel’s widow. Sic transit gloria.
After he has learned all these matters the amateur has still a great deal to acquire. He may now know a real Elzevir from a book which is not an Elzevir at all. But there are enormous differences of value, rarity, and excellence among the productions of the Elzevirian press. The bookstalls teem with small, “cropped,” dingy, dirty, battered Elzevirian editions of the classics, not “of the good date.” On these it is not worth while to expend a couple of shillings, especially as Elzevirian type is too small to be read with comfort by most modern eyes. No, let the collector save his money; avoid littering his shelves with what he will soon find to be rubbish, and let him wait the chance of acquiring a really beautiful and rare Elzevir.
Meantime, and before we come to describe Elzevirs of the first flight, let it be remembered that the “taller” the copy, the less harmed and nipped by the binder’s shears, the better. “Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is,” says Shelley; and we may say that most men hardly know how beautiful an Elzevir was in its uncut and original form. The Elzevirs we have may be “dear,” but they are certainly “dumpy twelves.” Their fair proportions have been docked by the binder. At the Beckford sale there was a pearl of a book, a ‘Marot;’ not an Elzevir, indeed, but a book published by Wetstein, a follower of the Elzevirs. This exquisite pair of volumes, bound in blue morocco, was absolutely unimpaired, and was a sight to bring happy tears into the eyes of the amateur of Elzevirs. There was a gracious svelte elegance about these tomes, an appealing and exquisite delicacy of proportion, that linger like sweet music in the memory. I have a copy of the Wetstein ‘Marot’ myself, not a bad copy, though murderously bound in that ecclesiastical sort of brown calf antique, which goes well with hymn books, and reminds one of cakes of chocolate. But my copy is only some 128 millimetres in height, whereas the uncut Beckford copy (it had belonged to the great Pixérécourt) was at least 130 millimetres high. Beside the uncut example mine looks like Cinderella’s plain sister beside the beauty of the family.
Now the moral is that only tall Elzevirs are beautiful, only tall Elzevirs preserve their ancient proportions, only tall Elzevirs are worth collecting. Dr. Lemuel Gulliver remarks that the King of Lilliput was taller than any of his court by almost the breadth of a nail, and that his altitude filled the minds of all with awe. Well, the Philistine may think a few millimetres, more or less, in the height of an Elzevir are of little importance. When he comes to sell, he will discover the difference. An uncut, or almost uncut, copy of a good Elzevir may be worth fifty or sixty pounds or more; an ordinary copy may bring fewer pence. The binders usually pare down the top and bottom more than the sides. I have a ‘Rabelais’ of the good date, with the red title (1663), and some of the pages have never been opened, at the sides. But the height is only some 122 millimetres, a mere dwarf. Anything over 130 millimetres is very rare. Therefore the collector of Elzevirs should have one of those useful ivory-handled knives on which the French measures are marked, and thus he will at once be able to satisfy himself as to the exact height of any example which he encounters.
Let us now assume that the amateur quite understands what a proper Elzevir should be: tall, clean, well bound if possible, and of the good date. But we have still to learn what the good dates are, and this is matter for the study and practice of a well-spent life. We may gossip about a few of the more famous Elzevirs, those without which no collection is complete. Of all Elzevirs the most famous and the most expensive is an old cookery book, “‘Le Pastissier François.’ Wherein is taught the way to make all sorts of pastry, useful to all sorts of persons. Also the manner of preparing all manner of eggs, for fast-days, and other days, in more than sixty fashions. Amsterdam, Louys, and Daniel Elsevier. 1665.” The mark is not the old “Sage,” but the “Minerva” with her owl. Now this book has no intrinsic value any more than a Tauchnitz reprint of any modern volume on cooking. The ‘Pastissier’ is cherished because it is so very rare. The tract passed into the hands of cooks, and the hands of cooks are detrimental to literature. Just as nursery books, fairy tales, and the like are destroyed from generation to generation, so it happens with books used in the kitchen. The ‘Pastissier,’ to be sure, has a good frontispiece, a scene in a Low Country kitchen, among the dead game and the dainties. The buxom cook is making a game pie; a pheasant pie, decorated with the bird’s head and tail-feathers, is already made.
Not for these charms, but for its rarity, is the ‘Pastissier’ coveted. In an early edition of the ‘Manuel’ (1821) Brunet says, with a feigned brutality (for he dearly loved an Elzevir), “Till now I have disdained to admit this book into my work, but I have yielded to the prayers of amateurs. Besides, how could I keep out a volume which was sold for one hundred and one francs in 1819?” One hundred and one francs! If I could only get a ‘Pastissier’ for one hundred and one francs! But our grandfathers lived in the Bookman’s Paradise. “Il n’est pas jusqu’aux Anglais,” adds Brunet – “the very English themselves – have a taste for the ‘Pastissier.’” The Duke of Marlborough’s copy was actually sold for £1 4s. It would have been money in the ducal pockets of the house of Marlborough to have kept this volume till the general sale of all their portable property at which our generation is privileged to assist. No wonder the ‘Pastissier’ was thought rare. Bérard only knew two copies. Pietiers, writing on the Elzevirs in 1843, could cite only five ‘Pastissiers,’ and in his ‘Annales’ he had found out but five more. Willems, on the other hand, enumerates some thirty, not including Motteley’s. Motteley was an uncultivated, untaught enthusiast. He knew no Latin, but he had a flair for uncut Elzevirs. “Incomptis capillis,” he would cry (it was all his lore) as he gloated over his treasures. They were all burnt by the Commune in the Louvre Library.
A few examples may be given of the prices brought by ‘Le Pastissier’ in later days. Sensier’s copy was but 128 millimetres in height, and had the old ordinary vellum binding, – in fact, it closely resembled a copy which Messrs. Ellis and White had for sale in Bond Street in 1883. The English booksellers asked, I think, about 1,500 francs for their copy. Sensier’s was sold for 128 francs in April, 1828; for 201 francs in 1837. Then the book was gloriously bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet, and was sold with Potier’s books in 1870, when it fetched 2,910 francs. At the Benzon sale (1875) it fetched 3,255 francs, and, falling dreadfully in price, was sold again in 1877 for 2,200 francs. M. Dutuit, at Rouen, has a taller copy, bound by Bauzonnet. Last time it was sold (1851) it brought 251 francs. The Duc de Chartres has now the copy of Pieters, the historian of the Elzevirs, valued at 3,000 francs.
About thirty years ago no fewer than three copies were sold at Brighton, of all places. M. Quentin Bauchart had a copy only 127 millimetres in height, which he swopped to M. Paillet. M. Chartener, of Metz, had a copy now bound by Bauzonnet which was sold for four francs in 1780. We call this the age of cheap books, but before the Revolution books were cheaper. It is fair to say, however, that this example of the ‘Pastissier’ was then bound up with another book, Vlacq’s edition of ‘Le Cuisinier François,’ and so went cheaper than it would otherwise have done. M. de Fontaine de Resbecq declares that a friend of his bought six original pieces of Molière’s bound up with an old French translation of Garth’s ‘Dispensary.’ The one faint hope left to the poor book collector is that he may find a valuable tract lurking in the leaves of some bound collection of trash. I have an original copy of Molière’s ‘Les Fascheux’ bound up with a treatise on precious stones, but the bookseller from whom I bought it knew it was there! That made all the difference.
But, to return to our ‘Pastissier,’ here is M. de Fontaine de Resbecq’s account of how he wooed and won his own copy of this illustrious Elzevir. “I began my walk to-day,” says this haunter of ancient stalls, “by the Pont Marie and the Quai de la Grève, the