The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-28

auctions. The former, of course, was rich
in illuminated manuscripts of which there
was an abundance throughout the season
from other Libraries, notably a magnificent
"Chronicles of England executed by a
| fifteenth century French artist. which
realized e16i0 just before last Christmas.
! In several successive seasons within re-
cent years Shakespeare has been para
mount. but though the past few months
has yielded the usual crop of folios, their
quality, with one exception; has not fav-
ored four-ngure prices. \ tall copy in
good condition vas sold in July for e195o,
and in March another fetched G970. A
second folio. noteworthy for it's very i'm
peffections.sw was bought for GOO; it had
been 'eXpufgated by order of the Span
ish nquisition."
There appeared group of Shakespeare
quartos A good quarto is sometimes as
valuable as good folio as witness the
$4,000 Titus Androncus,' now in an
American library, and the French quarto
of Richard H. sold in 1905 for R175o The
notable prices last season were G520 for
a fourth quarto OF Romeo and Juliet,
eco for a fourth of Hamlet, and el55
for a second of Titus Andronicus.'
The Browning Sale
Undoubtedly the event of the season
was the Browning sale, which lasted a
week in May. 1t had its triumphs, its
disappointments, even it's ludcfous side
Much of the artistic equipment of the
poets Italian villa had been brought to
| Wellington street, and, as auction re-
suits went, the only things worth serious
l9notice were a set of two panels of tapes
try which fetched e1450, and another set
of three, e1560. The rooms and even the
entrance hall were crammed with the
handiwoIlS in paint on canvas of the
! poets SON. Robert Barrett Browning
huge prices, mostly of nude nymphs dis
porting near rivers, and some were
knocked down for bids of a shilling.
But the literary collection was OF ex-
| traordinary interest The sale was her.
aided weeks and months before by a
heated controversy on the propriety of
displaying to the public gaze, much less
putting up to public auction intimate
ly sacred a correspondence as the casket
of documents known as the Browning
Love Letters-2S4 from Robert Browning
to Elizabeth Barrett, and 2S7 from the
poetess to the poet
Fortunately there was no danger of
the collection being broken up they We're
offered as one lot, and at the magnificent
bid of e6550 they passed INTO the possess
sion of Mr.. Saba. This was the second
largest sum ever paid at Sothebys. 1t
was exceeded few years ago by the
those documents of inestimable value to
American historians dealing with the
time about the end of the seventeenth
century, when the American colonies were
struggling for the retention of their form
er liberties and charters, while engaged
in fight for existence against Indian
raids and French encroachments.
Next the love letters in importance were
the original autograph manuscript of sew
eral of the famous poems of Browning
and his, wife. Mrs. Brownings 'tSonnets
From the Portuguese" fetched e1130, APP
preaching the record Of e120O for Scott's
Lady of the Lake; and aurora Leigh
$3.50; while her husbands manuscript of
'Asolando' ran up to $500. A bundle of
letters from Mrs. Browning to Miss Nit
ford. fetched 9240.
OF the printed books most favor was
shown to that remarkable rarity Pauline:
Fragment of a Confession the first
flower of Browning's youthful intellect
in 1888, which realized the record sum of
94SO. An interesting presentation copy
to her lover of Elizabeth Barretts Poems
Before Congress- sold for e235.
Many a precious little cargo of literary
treasures once under the hammer at
Sotheby's, has sailed for America, des-
tined for the libraries of public insttu-
tions there The most valuable of recent
acquisition were the Huth- Shakespeare
| great sale by Mr.. A. Cochrane for pre-,
sentation as thanks offering to his alma
mater Yale; and more recently still, In
| February last, we had from the Dunn II
| brary a unique collection of 355 lots of
ancient English law books. printed and
manuscript bought in one lot for presen-
| tation to Harvard university.
In Washington there has been for more
than 30 years one of two copies known
of Benjamin Franklin's Dissertation On
Liberty and Necessity Pleasure and
Pain written by Benjamin when he was
a boy. compositor in London, and set up
and printed by himself. The other copy
came up at Sotheby's in June at the Huth
sale; and thereby hangs tale-a romance
even.
The late Mr.. Henry Stevens bought the
pamphlet in 1850 for half crown. He
offered it to the British museum for
guinea, and the offer was refused. 1t
made subsequent auction room appear
ances. and twice did the authorities at
Bloomsbury attempt to secure it, being
beaten on the last occasion al the Hotten
sale in 1872 by a bid of G22 los. 1t event.
ually joined the Huth library. Two months
ago that Dissertation caused battle
royal between Mr.. Quaritch and Mr.. Hen
ry Stevens, and the latter won at the
enormous price of e1005!
The Huth Library
The portion of the Huth library dis
persed this year was the third since the
first portion appeared in 1911, realizing
E50,S2l, including the old woodcuts and
engravings We are still years in front
of the end of this great dispersal. In the
alphabetically arranged cataog we have
only reached the letter II, and if we are
staggered at the colossal aggregate up to
date of e147,613. our wonder is intensified
i'll remembering that under the Huth be-
quest the British museum had the first
choice of so items before even the auction
catalog could be prepared. The value of
THAT cleaning by the Bloomsbury experts
is extimated at about G100.000
State Prison as Attraction
Calvin G. Goodrich president of the