Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/348

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. OCT. 12, 1907.

or indeed were actually writing, those works which were to earn for them immortal fame. Byron Shelley, Keats, Carlyle, Maeaulay, and Borrow were then in early youth or childhood, while the great Victorian writers FitzGerald, Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin, Thackeray, Dickens, and the Brontes were not yet born. In the world 01 art and book illustration Bartolozzi, Rowlandson, Gillray, Turner, Stothard and Smirke were pro- ducing those illustrations which have never since ceased to interest or charm, and some of which .are now valued by the collector at many times the prices obtained in 1807."

Cruikshank was then only fifteen years oJ

A glance at a few of the London publish- ing houses of that date shows us Thomas Norton Longman the third, reigning at -"The Black Swan" and "The Ship" in Paternoster Row, his firm, in addition to publishing, then engaging extensively in the old-book trade. A near neighbour of Edmund Hodgson, at 32, Fleet Street, was " a very excellent and gentlemanly man ^albeit a bookseller," and one of whom Scott -wrote as " a young bookseller of capital and enterprise, and with more good sense and propriety of sentiment than fall to the share of most of the trade."

This very excellent and gentlemanly man was John Murray the first, then twenty-five years of age. He had married the year previously Miss Elliot of Edinburgh, and among his publications was Scott's new poem ' Marmion,' of which he held a fourth share, which had been offered to him by Constable. Another near neighbour of Hodgson, at 43, Fleet Street, was Joseph Butterworth, the extensive publisher of law- books, and one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It is curious to note that, in the old catalogues of the Hodgsons, solicitors whose libraries were sold anonymously were invariably de- scribed as "respectable " a practice which was discontinued about 1852, when the epithet " eminent " was generally adopted. Another firm of the time was the Rivingtons. In 1807 this was represented by Francis and Charles, the grandsons of the original founder ; they had not then moved into the handsome premises they occupied for many years at 3, Waterloo Place, opposite Smith & Elder's. James Nisbet, the founder of the Berners Street firm, came two years later (1809); he rigidly excluded every publica- tion that was not of a religious character.

Mr. Sidney Hodgson rightly considers that the avidity with which Americans catch up book rarities is largely responsible for the advance in price of choice works in English literature. Well can I remember, as far j

back as 1854, the large purchases made by them, both for their own private libraries and for the purposes of sale. British book- lovers were slow to recognize this, and many a choice treasure, which should have found its home either in the private libraries of the wealthy or in the British Museum, got shipped off to the United States. Although we may lament this, we can at the same time feel proud that the literature of the old home is so highly valued by our relatives across the sea.

I have been comparing prices, and, thanks to my friend Mr. Francis Edwards, I am able to quote a few. I have taken the catalogue of Messrs. Willis & Sotheran of 1862 (in the compilation of which Mr. Charles Edmonds, as Mr. Henry Cecil Sotheran in- forms me, took an important share), and compared the prices with those in Mr. J. H. Slater's invaluable ' Book-Prices Current,' 1905-6. The conditions of the works are as nearly as possible the same ; the first price quoted is that of 1862, and the second that of 1905-6.

A fine copy of the First Folio, 1623, the text perfect, but the letterpress title and verses in admirable facsimile, 53Z. ; a copy sold in June, 1906, wanting title, portrait, and verses opposite, and other defects, not subject to return, 24:51. A Second Folio, a good sound copy, 18Z. ; an inferior copy, March, 1906, 40Z.

As regards the original Quarto editions of Shakespeare's works, only two copies of the first separate edition of ' Hamlet ' are known, so that it lies quite beyond the reach of money. The rise in Shakespeare Quartos is well illustrated by ' Henry IV. [Part 1).' This fetched at the Steevens Sale 3Z. 10s., and at the Roxburghe Sale 61. 6s. In 1856 it realized 211. 10s. ; and u the following year the Halliwell copy commanded 75Z. In the sixties Mr. George Daniell valued his copy at 200L ; and if a fine example occurred for sale at the Dresent period, it would probably fetch
 * hat sum.

The best Quarto edition of ' Henry V.' is Steevens's library a copy was knocked down for the insignificant sum of a guinea, but a hundred times that sum might fail to secure a fine example to-day. But the rise in value is shown in a far more marked degree in the case of ' Henry IV. (Part II.).' This was first published in 1600, by Andrew Wise and William Aspley. About a century ago copies could be bought in the saleroom for 2L or 3Z. ; but in 1904 an example was
 * hat issued in 1608. At the dispersal of