Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/99

 i. JAN. -23, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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those sturdy, hard-working, practical, self-taught men who, besides being the head of those who gathered round his domestic hearth, became to a certain ex- tent the magisterial leader of his township." He loved books, collected and read them, and became well known as the founder of the Vermont Historical Society. Young Stevens, when only fourteen, left home for Albany, where, in the offices of the Secre- tary of State, he copied historical manuscripts for his father, and in 1852 obtained an official appoint- ment there. In the meantime his brother Henry, who was fourteen years his senior, had come to London in 1845, and had become a purchaser of American books for the British Museum, with the result that it now contains a more extensive library of American books than any single library in the United States. Franklin helped him in his purchases, and in 1858 became his agent, and on the 9th of July, 1860, joined his brother in England, where he shared rooms with Mr. Somerby ; and George Feabody, who liked their society, dined with them once a week, making a point of adding to his contributions to the dinner a duck, which he would bring himself ready for the housekeeper to prepare. Upon one occasion Peabody quietly put out one of the two candles, remarking that one was enough with which to see to talk. It was during their communion that the rough plan of the famous Peabody Trust was put to paper. In 1866 Stevens was appointed Dispatch Agent of the United States Government at London ; and in 1867 " the tyranny of business was sufficiently relaxed" to allow of his taking his wife he had married Charlotte Whittingham, a daughter of Charles Whittingham of the Chiswick Press to visit the home so dear to him at Vermont. During his absence not a vyeek had been allowed to elapse without a letter to his father or mother. Stevens would often recall quaint inci- dents in the old Vermont days : among others that " in the Scotch church at Barnet there had grown up a custom for the whole congregation to stand during the ministers prayer, and as such extempore appeals were long and their periods well known, a tacit arrangement had been arrived at by the hearers, who from old experience provided for a time of rest. No signal was given, but at one particular point which all present recognized, it was felt that the moment had come to ' change to the other foot,' and the men of the congregation hearers who had driven in from a distance in the country raised and brought down the butt ends of their whips upon the floor with a precision and resonance that was electrifying."

In 1871 Stevens had to take dispatches to Mr. Wash- burne, the United States minister in Paris, then in the hands of the Commune and bein besieged by MacMahon. When near the Arc de Triomphe "a shell came whistling towards us, and exploded in the air over our heads.' 1 In making reference to the famous book collections of the United States, both public and private, the memoir justly states that " no small portion of these have reached their present and abiding destination through the agency in Trafalgar Square. Prior to 1887 the only records of the public sales of such works were the

auctioneers' catalogues In 1887, however, was

commenced that well-known and useful work of reference ' Book-Prices Current,' and a careful examination of the volumes will reveal how large a proportion of the really important works sold by auction during recent years have been purchased by Benjamin Franklin Stevens." He died on the

5th of March, 1902, after a long illness borne with the greatest fortitude. He was a man of modest nature and simple living, and it has been well said of him : "Everybody knew him as a sturdy New Englander, one of the most lovable men that ever gripped the hand and said ' God speed. 5 "

At the end of the volume is the " Introduction to the Catalogue Index of Manuscripts in the Archives of England, France, Holland, and Spain relating to- America, 1763 to 1783 f compiled in Three Divisions, in each of which all of the 161,000 Document* enumerated are cited. Compiled by Benjamin. Franklin Stevens (of Vermont)." During his last few months he was engaged in planning the final details of this great catalogue, "and in giving in- structions as to arrangement, title-pages, binding,. &c., of these beautiful manuscript volumes, mostly on hand-made paper bearing his own watermark.

" As to arrangement, it is in three divisions :

"(1) A Catalogue of the papers in the order in which they exist in the various archives or collec- tions. This forms fifty volumes.

"(2) A Chronological arrangement of the same, which by giving to each document a precis of contents and other details, is extended into one hundred volumes.

" (3) An Alphabetical index to the same by writers and receivers, or where no author is known, then by subject matter, in thirty volumes.

"The binding, according to his express wish, is- in full morocco, a different colour marking the three sets.

" It is the hope of his relatives and friends at the time this memoir is written, that this great and unique work will eventually find its place in one of the National Institutions of the United States."

The memoir contains excellent portraits of Mr. B. F. Stevens, his father, his mother Candace, and. his wife- Charlotte.

Oxford Miniature Edition of Shakespeare. Edited, with a Glossary, by W. J. Craig, M.A. The Comedies; Tragedies; Histories, Poems, and Sonnets. (Frowde.)

I>* three ravishing little volumes, each with a different portrait and glossary, and each on Oxford India paper, we have the "Oxford Miniature Edition of Shakespeare." It is a delightful and most convenient form in which to possess the com- plete works of the greatest of writers. The Oxford Shakespeare on India paper has long been with us a cherished and constantly used edition. The present is even more attractive, and has the added value of portability. It is equally to be prized as a gift-book and a possession. Small as it is, the text is perfectly legible. The get-up is specially at- tractive.

Miniature Series of Musician^. Mozart. By Eben-

ezer Prout, B.A. Gomiod. By Henry Tolhurst.

Beethoven. By J. S. Shedlock, B.A. Arthur

Sullican. By H. Saxe Wyndham. (Bell & Sons.)

MESSES. BELL & SONS have begun a "Miniature

Series of Musicians," to rank with a similar series

of painters. Like the old, the new volumes are

trusted to writers of proclaimed authority, and,

like theni, they are graced by portraits and other

illustrations. Opportunities for illustration are,

naturally, not so abundant in the case of musicians

as in that of painters, but rare prints and the like

are abundantly reproduced, and the idea on which

the publication is based and the execution are