THE ROMANCE OF OLD-BOOK COLLECTING. The recent discovery of the manuscript of the first book of Milton's Paradise Lost has drawn attention to the romance which so often attaches to old manuscripts and books. Although it is true that nowadays "finds" are becoming more and more rare, there is still a sufficient element of romance attaching to the old-book trade to endue it with a great amount of interest and even excitement. Nowhere, probably, are "finds" more likely to be met with than in the famous second-hand book-market of the Paris quays or in the book-shops of Amsterdam. The second-hand book-stalls of London have long ago become so systematically and thoroughly scoured that "finds" in them are of very rare occurrence. Many have probably heard of the wonderful Chaucer which was discovered a few years ago in a lumberroom of a Warwickshire manor-house, and only escaped burning by use as fire-lighting material because the servant happened to show some of the quaint initial letters to the butler, who reported the discovery to his master. Had the book been burned the fortunate owner of it would have been seven hundred pounds poorer. Quite recently too, in a Breton farm, a travelling artist unearthed a beautifully illuminated missal on vellum (bereft of its covers, it is true), which he purchased from its peasant-owner for a matter of twenty or thirty francs, and on his return to Paris sold it to one of the largest dealers for a thousand times as much; one interesting feature of this volume being the introduction of the portrait of Joan of Arc in one of the initial letters. Like so many other priceless objets d'art, it found its way across the Atlantic, the American purchaser paying something like one thousand five hundred pounds for its possession. Less than twenty years ago a "find" of a monkish illuminated breviary took place in the second-hand book-shop of a west of England town. The business had recently changed hands, and the new proprietor knew very little of the trade he had adopted. On attending a sale at a neighboring mansion, and purchasing an odd lot of books, he scarcely took the trouble to examine the volumes, with the result that a shabby old black-letter book was placed in the sixpenny box by his assistant, where it lay for days before a passing and well-known bibliophile spotted it, and with fear and trembling at the value of his discovery, tendered the sixpence in payment. When he got home he was enraptured to find that the book he thought might be worth at least a five-pound note was worth twenty-five times as much. In the book-boxes of the open-air market on the quays by the Seine bargains may yet be found, for it is only the other day that a first edition of one of the rarest of Swinburne's works was picked up for the infinitesimal sum of thirty centimes, and was afterwards sold to a book collector for something like a hundred times as much. About a dozen years ago a volume of one of Elizabethan poets picked up at this same spot for halfa-frane, and was afterwards sold in London for upwards of one hundred and twenty pounds. the rarest was The wonder is that, with the num bers of persons who daily inspect the contents of the book-boxes which are fastened to the parapets of the Quai de Conti and Quai Voltaire, such treasures should for a moment escape the eye of a collector. But we imagine, from conversations we have had at various times with the proprietors of these book-boxes, that few of the curious who turn over the contents possess much knowledge of the value of out-of-the-way volumes; and, of course, when the latter happen to be in a foreign language their ignorance on this point is still greater and more excusable. Not many months ago the owner of a series of these book-boxes purchased an odd lot of volumes turned out of the lumber-room in one of the old houses, once a nobleman's palace, situated in a narrow street off Ile de la Cité. Amongst the miscellaneous collectionwhich included copies of Voltaire's works and Montaigne's-were several valuable English books of the reign of Henry VII. and (greater than all these) an imperfect but otherwise wellpreserved Caxton. This thick, clumsylooking volume, bereft of one of its covers and minus several pages, had remained for quite a long time in the fifty-centime box of its ignorant purchaser. One day an English undergraduate, whose hobby lay in the direction of early-printed books, happened to be spending a few days in Paris; he saw the book while turning over a multitude of others, and recognized that it was a Caxton. He acquired it at the remarkably low figure of fourpence three-farthings, and carried it back with him to London. The volume, rebound in ancient style, with what remained of the original cover forming a portion of the binding, is now one of his most treasured possessions. It is difficult to say what its precise value may be, but it is scarcely likely to be less than several hundred pounds-a "find" of which the owner has every reason to be proud. But it is not, of course, in Paris alone that such discoveries are occasionally made. In an old second-hand dealer's shop in one of the larger towns of the Potteries district quite recently an early printed book was discovered by a passing and cycling bibliophile, which, purchased for a few pence, proved to be worth many thousand times as much; it was afterwards sold in one of the London auction-rooms to an American millionaire, who paid a truly remarkable sum for the privilege of taking the book across the Atlantic and placing it in one of the libraries of Pennsylvania. In Bristol, too, a copy of that very rare book Poems by Two Brothers (Alfred Tennyson) was recently discovered by a collector, who gave sixpence for it, and is now congratulating himself on possessing a treasure which is scarcely likely to prove of less value at any future time. In the second-hand book-shops of Berlin not a few valuable "finds" are occasionally picked up, though, to do him credit, the Berlin second-hand bookseller appears to be by no means the least intelligent of his class, but rather the reverse; and it is only in English books that bargains are frequently found. His knowledge of early Continental books and of illuminated missals is such that he seldom makes any mistake in the value he puts upon them. But in some few of the smaller curiosity-shops in the obscurer streets of Berlin bargains may sometimes be found, as witness the purchase of a Venetian illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century in 1894 by an English tourist of artistic taste, which, when brought to England, was valued by a well-known authority at four hundred and fifty guineas; this manuscript having cost the fortunate finder less than as many pence. It is probable that systematic search through the cottages and houses of Touraine would better reward the bibliophile than any other district in Europe. Out of the abbeys of Touraine must have come many hundreds, if not thousands, of valuable illuminated manuscript books; and many of these may still remain to find their way ultimately into well-known collections and public libraries and mu seums. Not so many years ago a magnificent illuminated copy of A Book of the Hours was discovered in a little hamlet of this ancient province; it is now separated from its old home by some thousands of miles of sea, having been acquired by an American collector for the enormous sum of two thousand five hundred guineas. What the finder paid the peasant in whose ancient farmhouse (once a portion of an abbey) the almost priceless treasure was found did not transpire; but it is scarcely likely that the sum paid was as many sous as the ultimate purchaser paid guineas. Also in this district, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, were discovered portions of a magnificent work on vellum-incomplete, it is true, but still of immense value. The circumstance of this discovery was a very curious one. A tourist or rather perhaps we should say a traveller-came to the village, and finding the one or two spare beds of the inn already occupied, sought shelter for the night in a neighboring cottage. He was shown into a small attic-room, lit by a window of four smallish panes. He did not particularly notice the window that night; but, waking soon after dawn the next morning, he was astonished to see what he took to be stained glass in the window. Rising to examine this, he speedily discovered that the supposed stained glass, through which the light of day was somewhat faintly passing, was in reality the illuminated vellum pages of some ancient book. Although not a collector, the traveller, one Jean Goulet, was a man of some education, and at once recognized that these pages must have formed a portion of an interesting, if not valuable, Latin manuscript. On descending for breakfast and making an inquiry regarding it, his hostess explained that he was correct, and that the "paper" with which they had sought to mend the cracked panes and replace the broken ones had formed a portion of a book which her father had found in a neighboring château some thirty years previously, at the time of the French Revolution. The peasant woman did not evince any great interest in the matter, but admitted the rest of the book was somewhere. After considerable pressure put upon her by her guest, a search was made for it, and it was discovered in a little cupboard near the fireplace. An attempt had evidently been made to light the fire with some of the pages, for several charred and shrivelled ones were still in the cupboard. In the end the remaining leaves-some ninety in number-of this most interesting and beautiful book were acquired by the traveller for a few francs. But nothing would persuade the peasant woman to permit the four or five leaves which had been used for the mending of the window to be taken away! "No," said she; "we've no more glass, and they serve their purpose well enough for us." Scores of interesting finds might be quoted; but one which occurred in the Midlands not more than four or five years ago must suffice. In a manor-house not far from Derby some workmen were employed in the enlargement of one of the upper rooms, and after breaking into what was supposed to be a solid wall, they were very much surprised to find the crow bars crash into space. A few minutes of the house came upon the scene sufficed to open up a gap sufficiently soon after the workmen had discovered large to admit one of their number, the little chamber, and the book and and much to the man's astonishment, crucifix were promptly seized by him; when pushing his head through the otherwise it is more than possible that breach in the wall thus formed, he the former might have been consideradiscovered that below him lay quite a bly damaged at the hands of its disconsiderable chamber, unknown at least coverers. In a well-known saleroom to any of the then occupiers of the house. this same little volume eventually The little room or "priest's hole" thus brought, under the hammer, a sum of discovered was partly above and partly upwards of three hundred and fifty below the floor-level of the room in pounds. A lucky find indeed for the which the workmen stood. About nine owner of the house! feet in height and perhaps five feet six in length, the chamber thus disclosed was of sufficient size to have accommodated without discomfort one or two people. Its sole contents at the time of the sudden breaking into it were a wooden platter of Elizabethan make, a wooden fork, a few bones, and a little silver crucifix placed on a narrow shelf, on which also was an illustrated manuscript volume which dated from the early part of the fifteenth century. Fortunately the owner Chambers's Journal. Though such finds are by no means common nowadays, those who know the subject of the romance of books and the extraordinary places in which early printed and beautifully illuminated works are frequently found, are agreed that many inestimable treasures must still lie concealed in the manor-houses and cottages of various countries, in which examples of the beautiful work of the monks of long ago are even nowadays occasionally discovered. Clive Holland. The Spectator. Wide upon wings of gold Hear how the silence speaks Long by harbor and hill Men of your deeds shall tell, Men that have wished you ill, And men that have wished you well. Laurence Housman. BOOKS AND AUTHORS. Punch's annual index, which discloses many interesting secrets, reveals Mr. E. V. Lucas as the author of the very clever series, "Life's Little Difficulties." George Gissing's last book, "Veranilda” is published in this country by E. P. Dutton & Co. At the time of Mr. Gissing's death the book was finished with the exception of two or three chapters. Mr. Frederic Harrison, his friend, read the proof and contributes an introduction to the book, leaving the story exactly as the author had written it. The story itself deals with the subject which was nearest the author's heart, Rome, Central and Southern Italy, where the author had spent his last and happiest years. Mr. Harrison believes that it is in this field, rather than in the trials and tragedies of middle class life, that Mr. Gissing had at last found his true sphere. The issue and reissue of the writings of standard authors in every conceivable form and at all prices is a cheering sign that the taste for real literature is not dying out. The Chicago Dial truthfully says: Carlyle is as staple a product as corn or cotton; Thackeray is no less steady an object of consumption than tobacco or tea. The publisher of these editions takes no more risk than the farmer who raises his crop; his product is subject to the usual market fluctua tions, but is reasonably assured of yielding a return of the cost of production. The output, moreover, increases from year to year with the increase of population, just as the production of wheat increases, thus verifying the saying that man shall not live by bread alone. Studies and sketches of "Old Florence and Modern Tuscany" are grouped in a delightful volume by Janet Ross, of which E. P. Dutton & Co. are the American publishers. Quaint customs, old traditions and bits of history are mingled with sketches of Tuscan peasant life as seen to-day. Mrs, Ross has the rare gift of writing of humble folk without condescension and with fine insight. The chapters on "Vintaging in Tuscany" and "Popular Songs in Tuscany" show these qualities at their best, but where the whole volume is so charming it is difficult to discriminate. The frontispiece is a picture of the Florentine "Brotherhood of Pity" on its merciful errand, described in the opening chapter. There are four |