July, 1862. The Philobiblion. Autograph Letters, FROM THE PORTFOLIO OF A BOOKWORM. THE love of relics is inherent in man; none fo great as to be entirely above it, none fo fmall as to be entirely below it. From earliest time he has ftriven to preserve the memory of great men, not only by oral tradition and the pen of cunning fcribes, but by hoarding up their relics objects which belonged to, and were used by them-their weapons, garments, books -locks of their hair, even fragments of their bones, fometimes their duft itself: "Two handfuls of white duft fhut in an urn of brafs." The favage preferves the war-club of his most famous man-killer, the facred infignia of the priestly founder of his mythology. What the civilized portion of mankind preferves, would require a volume merely to enumerate. Take Europe, for inftance, which, according to its wife men, is "the guardian of civilization." There is fcarcely a city in Europe which has not its mufeum fet apart for the prefervation of relics -royal, artistic, and autorial. Among the former, the crown of Charlemagne, the boots of the great Frederick, and the old clothes of Napoleon, at once recur to the memory among the latter, the MSS. of Number 8. Taffo at Ferrara; the Virgil of Petrarch in the Ambrofian Library at Florence; the Milton MSS. at Trinity College, Cambridge; Pope's rough draft of his Homer, in the British Museum; and the fifty volumes of correfpondence between Scott and his contemporaries, formerly in the poffeffion of Lockhart, and now, I believe, in the library at Abbotsford. And, as if to justify the poet's line "The pen is mightier than the sword"the relics of authors are far more numerous than those of conquerors, and, in my way of thinking, far more interesting. A very pretty paragraph might be turned here, on the relative merits of Captain Pen and Captain Sword; but, as it would not be so novel as what is to follow, I fhall not attempt it, but content myself with declaring-only for myself, of course-that it is better to write a great book than to win a great battle. "Of the making of many books there is no end." So faid, or is made to fay, in our version of the Scriptures, the wife King of Ifrael. If this were a fact in his day, of which there may reasonably be a doubt, it is a much greater fact in ours. It is not quite four centuries fince the invention of printing, yet the number of books it has ufhered into the world is incalculable. The volumes in the great public libraries of Eu- his death, there can be no doubt, I think, rope can be estimated within a few hundred but that a collection of his autographs could thoufands; not fo those which have perished have been got together; but commencing, -"their name is legion." There was a in his cafe, only in the latter half of the time when these books were not-when laft century, by the accidental discovery of they existed as conceptions merely. Before his name on a deed-which deed has fince they could be books, they had to be writ- difappeared-it ended in the Ireland forten; the brain-work of their authors cul- geries, which were as fhallow as they were minated in hand-work-in days, months, impudent. years perchance, of laborious penmanship. Did it ever occur to you, reader, that the books in your library were once MSS.? that your Shakespeare, your Dickens, your Tennyson, were once loofe fheets of writing, grim with blots, and half-illegible from the hafte with which they were written? Few realize this fact, so accustomed are we all to print and binding. Some four or five years ago, I discovered that I had a paffion for autographs. How I came by it, I never exactly knew; I muft have taken it like the measles, or first love. Having already correfponded with several "famous hands," as Tonfon used to call his authors, I proceeded to look over their letters-fuch of them as had escaped the wafte-basket and the fire-and to select speWhat has become of all the MSS. of cimens of their penmanship, which fuddengreat authors? What has become of all ly affumed an immenfe value in my eyes. the pins? The wits tell us that the latter My fuccefs at home led me abroad, in the have dropped to the earth, and become shape of orders on the London market, terra pins, but they do not attempt to ac- from which I procured from time to time count for the difappearance of the former. what the Catalogues defignated as "defiraNot a page of Shakespeare's writing is ble fpecimens," chiefly of English authors, known to be extant; four or five fignatures moftly the poets, for whom, and indeed for (three, I believe, attached to his Will, and all that relates to them, I confefs a fondone in his copy of Montaigne, in the British nefs. The pleasure which thefe MS. acMuseum) are all that we can trace to his quifitions gave me, can scarcely be undermagic pen. A few sheets of Milton's ju- ftood, except by collectors like myself. I venile poems have been spared, and fome cannot tell the delight I felt when Burns, of his books, enriched with notes; but not Cowper, and Scott, came into my poffeffion. a page of Paradife Loft, or of his grand "Thefe fheets of paper," I thought, as I profe-works, No value feems to have been gazed upon them, were really touched upon the MSS. of our earlier and great- by the hands that wrote Tam O'Shanter, er poets, and they perifhed accordingly- The Tafk, and Waverley!" The thought as rapidly and as furely as the "copy" of feemed to bring me nearer my favorite aua daily newspaper. As we come nearer thors than any, however careful, ftudy of our own times, we find more MSS. pre- their works could have done-feemed to ferved, the admiration of readers toward bring me face to face, or at leaft hand to their favorite authors taking a more perfon- hand, with them. I was with Burns in his al fhape than was formerly fashionable-a homely chamber at Dumfries, looking into loving interest, which fought to preferve his great black eyes, tempestuous with paftheir autographs. fion and genius; with poor dear Cowper Had the paffion for relics exifted in in his little study at Wefton, glancing at Shakespeare's day, or even fifty years after the laft pages of his Homer; with Scott fet among the lawyers of Edinburgh, or, better fellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip ftill, in his royal domain at Abbotsford, fur- Sidney" (when I wish to shake hands with rounded by his dogs, his books, and his the gentle Sidney, I do it by proxy, touchrelics of olden time. ing the while the faded fignature of Gre The weakness of most collectors of auto- vile); but as I hope to be more entertaingraphs is to make their collections too large, ing than fuch trifles would allow me to be, increase of appetite growing by what it feeds I fhall begin nearer our own time, and with on, until it acquires an oftrich-like omniv- fomething of greater importance. Suppofe orousness. The fpecial weakness of the we go back to about the middle of the last American collector is to gather fpecimens century, and commence with a letter of from the pens of his own countrymen. It Shenstone's? "I have read," wrote Gray, is well enough to have a Washington, a 66 an octavo Franklin, or any of the great generals of volume of Shenstone's letters. Poor man! the Revolution; but when it comes to the he was always wishing for money, for fame, fignatures of governors, and members of and other diftinctions; and his whole phiCongress, my intereft in the purfuit ceafes: lofophy confifted in living against his will the game is too small for any but the young- in retirement, and in a place which his eft sportsman. No, if I cannot have great taste had adorned, but which he only enmen in my collection, I will not have a joyed when people of note came to fee and collection. Better none, than an infignifi- commend it; his correfpondence is about cant or abfurd one. I fhould just as foon nothing but this place and his own writhink of keeping my tailor's bill (and I tings, with two or three neighbouring clermight, as a curiofity-if it were receipted!) gymen who wrote verses too." as to preferve the frank of a member of Congrefs. But to the letter, which was written at the Leafowes (no reader of the last century's goffip can be ignorant of that multum in parvo in the way of picturesque ruralities, The Leafowes), and addreffed to John Scott Hylton, Efqr., by whom probably the date was added, "21 May 1757-" I know nothing of Mr. Hylton, nor of My collection is small, but choice. It confists of about one hundred autographs, documents, letters, poems, and the like, by fome of the best English and American writers, and a small library of books formerly in their poffeffion. As many of the former are still unpublished, I propofe to give fome the other parties mentioned in it, with the of the most interesting in the remainder of this paper, with prefatory notes concerning their authors, the circumftances under which they were written, and the perfons to whom they were addressed. exception of Dr. Wall, who is thus fpoken of by Shenftone, in a letter to his friend Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote, under the date of April 8th, 1757: "Dr Wall of Worcester, a very eminent Were fignatures alone in queftion, I phyfician, and the patron of this mineral, fhould begin with that of Thomas Sack- (Malvern Waters,) who has promoted a ville, Lord Buckhurft (no lover of poetry fubfcription in the county towards buildcan forget his noble Induction to The Miring, near the well, for the accommodation of rour for Magiftrates), from which I should strangers." The building alluded to, may pass to William Alexander's, Earl of Stir- be the Captain's: ling, the friendly poetical rival of Drummond of Hawthornden, and Sir Fulke Grevile's, "Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Coun "I defire my Compliments to Mr. Hylton, & that he wou'd send me a Purge |