New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-02-05
THE HAMILTON LIBRARY.
SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF us TREAS
URES AND HISTORY.

| Hamilton poIace Library no notice taken of
the difficulty about the dispersion ana sunposeu IT,
collection of the fonthill Library. The writer
! refers calmly to The important books ana manu-
scripts by Rockford at FOnthill, afrms that most OF
them came to the grandfather OF the present luke
by marriage, and calmly ignores the met oil the
disncrson of Beckfords Fonthill library by auction
lie seems rever to have heard of the Fonthlll sale
The catalogue of that sale makes an octave volume
| n. nearly 400 pages of which more than 200 are
occupied with the books, for the sale OF which
twenty days were required. 1t Is certain as SAID
the other day. that these books were sold, ana
equally certain that all of them were not bought
by the then Marquis of Douglas the present DUKES
grandfather Before the auction now announced
actually takes place we may perhaps DC alio"eu ~
know more accurately how and when the So-calied
Beckford Library, the catalogue of which Nils one
of the two big volumes OF the Hamilton tFaiace
collection, was formed. Meantime my CONJECTURE
that il was not the FOnhill but the later coectioh
of Rockford at Lansdowne Hill near Bath' ana
perbaps also at Cintra in Portugal, may stand for
want Of uetter. and will have glimpse at one
or two more of its good things. | copy from the
manuscript notes to whicl ! have before been in
dcbted. adding one or two from the published ac-
count Some relate to the other sections OF the
library.
The Grafton copy of Mezeray'5 Historic de
France" lGl;}jl vols. foio. comes first on large
paper It is a fine book in its ordinary state. on
large paper a very stately book indeed. Bccktord
m 1918 paid $500 for this copy, which Brunei
calls a very fine One,-a price ont OF all proportion
TO any other OF which ind a record. Clarke says
it contains a. other copies mag, the portrait OF
Marie de Medjcls etched 10y herself but whether 1t
contains all the cancel, L. the question book as
everybody know. may be pr ciOu, for it, exterior
lDfl -
the edito princcps OF Pindar, by Aldus, 1913 with
the device, Of Henry II. and Diane de Poctiers
IMPRESSED on the cover. such also Is the Groer
copy of the Aldnc ApuIelus of 1921, with ITS initial
letter, Illuminated. and the autograph Of IEuauua
no. rs of I.crouX de Lncys cataioenc. 1t might
not be impossible to account Tor this copy through
out ITS whole career. from the date when It left the
press OF the second Aldus, at any rate after II
united the hosritablc shelves Of the admirable
Groer at bis death in 1868, thence TO find refuge
with the only less famous De Thou till II IS housed
with Bsckford. That excellent man had some OF the
true spirit of the bibliophe. He valued both pedi-
gree and condition: which the compiler OF the
meapre catalogue which has done service till now
unhappiIy did not. Such information as one has
ab1ut the books is derived from other and
one has TO be content with the rather vague assur
ancc that the general condition OF the library IS
fine; which might DE more satisfactory II one knew
from whom the assurance came.
There is a certain pleasure in knowing that
Mcutairne Of 1855, the last edition published by
Montaignc himself, is here. But whether the copy
is tall or short. perfect or imperfect sound or
rotten pure or soph~ticatcd, whether the title has
been laid down. whether the date at the BOTTOM OF
the gontispicce opposite the title is there or has
been shou away by The cruel binder, whether it IS
in IFS original leather or has been reclothod 10y Du
~euil or Fasteloup. or proianed by the clumsy
hand, of an English craltsman-On these aud other
like points no knowledge whatever is vouchsaicd
TO Us bv the catalogue maker Yet the value of the
book commercially speaking and great part OF ITS
value 10 the cOnuOISseur. depend on considerations
of this nature. all compendlously summed mp in the
one word, condition. If It be "a very poor copy 1t
NAV sell for 500 if fine for $500; if very line i'll
deed for ~ 600; at which latter price copy was
sometime quoted in the catalogue of Messrs.
Morgand and Fatout. as one of the finest known
and she price reqUOtcd in the supplement to
Brunei as the very finest known
Not a few of the copies of famous books to be
fonnd in the Hamilton Library on vellum. not
. few on large paper. the latter a mark of distnc
ton even rarcr. IN the case of books of certain
periods than the printing on yclum. Early Eng
lish printers is sorry to say, have, rs rule,
been less socitous to do honor of this sort to their
productions than those of the Continent Nclum
COMES Of Continental incunabua. from the
Nazarin Bible downward, and thereafter in the SIX
teeuth century of AldncS and other Typographical
masterpieces, exist in considerable numbers. But
of a Caxton on vcllum there is known but Il single
example the DoctInal Of Sapicnce now IN the
ROYAL Library at Windsor anything but 1ne
book. saws Mr. Blades, and of large paper copies
not one And what English printer, one must ask,
at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the six
I've named
printers of those books of Hours which issued from
the Partisan presses of Simon and Ncole NOslic, of
Antoine Vcrard, of tho iIardouyus and many an
other artist typographcr2 To come down to tho
seventeenth. there was sold only the other day
COPY OF what passes Tor the first collected edition of
Ben .Jonson on large paper 1t is not genuine
book in any state the first volume bearing date
1916 and the second 1G3l-1GlO, with separate
pagination to each play other work, but 1t is all
we have in its kind, and the existence of a copy on
large paper not suspected till this turned no for
sale IN a city auction room where remanders" are
generally worked oil. In which uutowafd crcum-
stances 1T fetched the respectable sum of $500;
which is a substantial token OF rarity. If copy of
,be Shakespeare First Folio should occur on large
uaner-nay if even n copy ordinary paper should
make its appearance uncut or with much ias
rourh cdge,-the above figure multiplied by ten
would probably not represent half the price it
would fetch. If the Hamilton Library possesses
ANYTHING extraordinary in Ezabethan or ante
Elizabethan literature, mention of it occurs in
the notes before me. But both Bcckford and Lord
Douglas had an eye for the Splendors of foreign
Typography and perhaps for foreign binding as
well. Twice or three times bindings by Pa5deoup
are named. There are two copies of the Aldne
Poliphili IIypnerotomachia' of 1899, the original
edition of beautiful book, not precisely rare in it.
self but certainly in fine condition; two copies
also of the Botticel Dante of 1881. In each case
l., +Lo RacL ford COLL inn he