A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two. Thomas Frognall Dibdin
books, comprising the unbound copies--and one chamber, occupied by the more exquisite specimens of the presses of the Alduses, the Giuntæ, the Stephens, &c. UPON VELLUM, or on large paper. Another chamber is exclusively devoted to large paper copies of all descriptions, from the presses of all countries; and in one or the other of these chambers are deposited the volumes from the Library of Grolier and De Thou--names, dear to Book- Collectors; as an indifferent copy has hardly ever yet been found which was once deposited on the shelves of either. You should know that the public do not visit this lower suite of rooms, it being open only to the particular friends of the several Librarians. The measurement of these rooms, from the entrance to the extremity of the fifth room, is upwards of 700 feet.
Now, my good friend, if you ask me whether the interior of this library be superior to that of our dear BODLEIAN, I answer, at once, and without fear of contradiction--it is very much inferior. It represents an interminable range of homely and commodious apartments; but the Bodleian library, from beginning to end--from floor to ceiling--is grand, impressive, and entirely of a bookish appearance. In that spacious and lofty receptacle--of which the ceiling, in my humble opinion, is an unique and beautiful piece of workmanship--all is solemn, and grave, and inviting to study: yet echoing, as it were, to the footsteps of those who once meditated within its almost hallowed precincts--the Bodleys, the Seldens, the Digbys, the Lauds and Tanners, of other times!20 But I am dreaming: forgetting that, at this moment, you are impatient to enter the MS. Department of the Royal Library at Paris. Be it so, therefore. And yet the very approach to this invaluable collection is difficult of discovery. Instead of a corresponding lofty stone stair-case, you cross a corner of the square, and enter a passage, with an iron gate at the extremity--leading to the apartments of Messrs. Millin and Langlès. A narrow staircase, to the right, receives you: and this stair-case would appear to lead rather to an old armoury, in a corner-tower of some baronial castle, than to a suite of large modern apartments, containing probably, upon the whole, the finest collection of Engravings and of Manuscripts, of all ages and characters, in Europe. Nevertheless, as we cannot mount by any other means, we will e'en set footing upon this stair-case, humble and obscure as it may be. You scarcely gain the height of some twenty steps, when you observe the magical inscription of CABINET DES ESTAMPES. Your spirits dance, and your eyes sparkle, as you pull the little wire--and hear the clink of a small corresponding bell. The door is opened by one of the attendants in livery--arrayed in blue and silver and red--very handsome, and rendered more attractive by the respectful behaviour of those who wear that royal costume. I forgot to say that the same kind of attendants are found in all the apartments attached to this magnificent collection--and, when not occupied in their particular vocation of carrying books to and fro, these attendants are engaged in reading, or sitting quietly with crossed legs, and peradventure dosing a little. But nothing can exceed their civility; accompanied with a certain air of politeness, not altogether divested of a kind of gentlemanly deportment.
On entering the first of those rooms, where the prints are kept, you are immediately struck with the narrow dimensions of the place--for the succeeding room, though perhaps more than twice as large, is still inadequate to the reception of its numerous visitors.21 In this first room you observe a few of the very choicest productions of the burin, from the earliest periods of the art, to the more recent performances of Desnoyer, displayed within glazed frames upon the wainscot. It really makes the heart of a connoisseur leap with ecstacy to see such Finiguerras, Baldinis, Boticellis, Mantegnas, Pollaiuolos, Israel Van Meckens, Albert Durers, Marc Antonios, Rembrandts, Hollar, Nanteuils, Edelincks, &c.; while specimens of our own great master engravers, among whom are Woollet and Sharp, maintain a conspicuous situation, and add to the gratification of the beholder. The idea is a good one; but to carry it into complete effect, there should be a gallery, fifty feet long, of a confined width, and lighted from above:22 whereas the present room is scarcely twenty feet square, with a disproportionably low ceiling. However, you cannot fail to be highly gratified--and onwards you go--diagonally--and find yourself in a comparatively long room--in the midst of which is a table, reaching from nearly one end to the other, and entirely filled (every day) with visitors, or rather students--busied each in their several pursuits. Some are quietly turning over the succeeding leaves, on which the prints are pasted: others are pausing upon each fine specimen, in silent ecstacy--checking themselves every instant lest they should break forth into rapturous exclamations! … "silence" being rigidly prescribed by the Curators--and, I must say, as rigidly maintained. Others again are busied in deep critical examination of some ancient ruin from the pages of Piranesi or of Montfaucon--now making notes, and now copying particular parts. Meanwhile, from the top to the bottom of the sides of the, room, are huge volumes of prints, bound in red morocco; which form indeed the materials for the occupations just described.23
But, hanging upon a pillar, at the hither end of this second room, you observe a large old drawing of a head or portrait, in a glazed frame; which strikes you in every respect as a great curiosity. M. Du Chesne, the obliging and able director of this department of the collection, attended me on my first visit. He saw me looking at this head with great eagerness. "Enfin voilà quelque chose qui mérite bien vôtre attention"--observed he. It was in fact the portrait of "their good but unfortunate KING JOHN"--as my guide designated him. This Drawing is executed in a sort of thick body colour, upon fine linen: the back-ground is gold: now almost entirely tarnished--and there is a sort of frame, stamped, or pricked out, upon the surface of the gold--as we see in the illuminations of books of that period. It should also seem as if the first layer, upon which the gold is placed, had been composed of the white of an egg--or of some such glutinous substance. Upon the whole, it is an exceedingly curious and interesting relic of antient graphic art.
To examine minutely the treasures of such a collection of prints-- whether in regard to ancient or modern art--would demand the unremitted attention of the better part of a month; and in consequence, a proportionate quantity of time and paper in embodying the fruits of that attention.24 There is only one other curiosity, just now, to which I shall call your attention. It is the old wood cut of ST. CHRISTOPHER--of which certain authors have discoursed largely.25 They suppose they have an impression of it here-- whereas that of Lord Spencer has been hitherto considered as unique. His Lordship's copy, as you well know, was obtained from the Buxheim monastery, and was first made public in the interesting work of Heineken.26 The copy now under consideration is not pasted upon boards, as is Lord Spencer's-- forming the interior linings in the cover or binding of an old MS.--but it is a loose leaf, and is therefore subject to the most minute examination, or to any conclusion respecting the date which may be drawn from the watermark. Upon such a foundation I will never attempt to build an hypothesis, or to draw a conclusion; because the same water-mark of Bamberg and of Mentz, of Venice and of Rome, may be found within books printed both at the commencement and at the end of the fifteenth century. But for the print--as it is. I have not only examined it carefully, but have procured, from M. Coeuré, a fac-simile of the head only--the most essential part--and both the examination and the fac-simile convince me … that the St. Christopher in the Bibliothèque du Roi is NOT an impression from the same block which furnished the St. Christopher now in the library of St. James's Place.
The general character of the figure, in the Royal Library here, is thin and feeble compared with that in Lord Spencer's collection; and I am quite persuaded that M. Du Chesne,--who fights his ground inch by inch, and reluctantly (to his honour, let me add) assents to any remarks which may make his own cherished St. Christopher of a comparatively modern date-- will, in the end, admit that the Parisian impression is a copy of a later date--and that, had an opportunity presented itself of comparing the two impressions with each other,27 it would never have been received into the Library at the price at which it was obtained--I think, at about 620 francs. However, although it be not THE St. Christopher, it is a graphic representation of the Saint which may possibly be as old as the year 1460.
But we have tarried quite long enough, for the present, within the cabinet of Engravings. Let us return: ascend about a dozen more steps; and enter the LIBRARY OF MANUSCRIPTS. As before, you are struck with the smallness of the first room; which leads, however, to a second of much larger dimensions--then to a third, of a boudoir character; afterwards to a fourth and fifth, rather straitened--and sixthly, and lastly, to one