VIEW AOBK

LEN

BRAND

PREFACE.

FROM my very childhood, the acquiring of Books has been my ruling passion. I can truly affirm, with an ancient Collector, εμοι Βιβλίων κτήσεως εκ παιδαρίου δεινος εντετηκε ποθος.

BUT for a long while, by various untoward circumstances, I was prevented from indulging it; and the arrivals of new Volumes were "few, and far between." Even after my accession to ecclesiastical preferment, the necessity of laying out a considerable sum in repairs and other buildings (for which I neither pressed upon the diminished fortunes of my piedecessor's family, nor availed myself of privileges which might have burthened the income of my successor) kept me, for some years, too poor to make many purchases.

Ar length came better times. Shelves were successively put up, and in some instances, doubly-filled. Convinced that

Men may find in olde bokys,

Whoso therin lokys,

Actes worthy of memory,

Full of knowledge and mystery;

(Kyng Boccus and Sydracke.)

I went on accumulating them, to the verification of the prophecy of a witty neighbour, who predicted that they would creep over

my walls like an erysipelas.' The interior of every apartment is, in fact, lined with a species of clumsy papering. My ball, dining-room, ante-room, dressing-rooms, bed-rooms, garret, closets, &c. &c. (to say nothing of a colonisation at Chester, to the amount of a couple of thousands), like the old Orestes scriptus et in tergo, all overflow. And I must add, like him too, necdum finitus. For, to adopt Chaucer's phrase,

I would rather have at my bed-head

A twenty books clothed in black or red,
Of Aristotle or his philosophy,

Than robes rich, rebeck, or psaltery.

YET, occasionally, I fear I may have exposed myself to the censure passed upon Oldbuck in the Antiquary'; in whose eyes no peculiar distinction, however trifling or minute, failed to give value to a Volume, provided the indispensable quality of rarity or rare occurrence were attached to it.' To profess a fondness for mere black-letter would, surely, be superfluous in a Member of the Roxburghe Club. But, as surely, something rational may be alleged in vindication of such fondness: since, independently of the implied scarcity of books of that description-injured as they generally are by lapse of time, repulsive in aspect, and inelegant in phraseology-they are often peculiarly rich in matter, and with the hue have the raciness of antiquity.

A farther object of my pursuit was the procuring of Unpublished Works, and of such as (though published) consisted of a very limited number of impressions. The first, I believe, however, constitute the more unequivocal class of rarities. With

*I have, at any rate, not overlaid the public on the present occasion with this Catalogue, having printed only a few Copies. Excessive Editions are, usually, oppressive ones-even to booksellers. Ipsa sibi emolumenti immoderati studio obest natio libraria, quia tot numero exemplaria prodeunt ut illis divendendis sæculum vix sufficiat; cùm, si minori numero defungi vellent, ardorem ementium ipsius libri raritate et paucitate codicum inflammari viderent. (Burman. Syllog. Epist. Præf.)

respect to the latter, we are told by Brunet; Il n'est pas impossible de se procurer cent exemplaires de tel ouvrage, dont on prétend qu'il n'y a eu que cinquante, ou même vingt-cinque exemplaires d'imprimés.

OF coloured copies, likewise (see Horne on Bibliography II. xiv) I possess a considerable Collection, and several of them I have reason to deem Unique.

THIS affluence, of various (and perhaps graver critics may add, of equivocal) character, I trust I have not quite unprofitably enjoyed for though I do not agree with the French Translator of the Latinised epigraph of one of Philo Judæus' treatises (Omnis bonus liber est), Tout livre est bon; I am disposed to think that few are so bad, as not to furnish something worthy of notice, if analysed with judicious intellectual chemistry. I would not willingly incur the reproach of Seneca, who asks; Quò mihi innumerabiles libros et bibliothecas, quarum dominus vix totâ vitá sua indices perlegit?* Mencken, likewise, in his Charlataneria Eruditorum, has justly satirised those, qui quidquid ubique prodeat librorum, quos nec legunt quidem unquam nec si legant intelligunt, avidissimè corradunt, totosque montes et acervos voluminum congerunt; to which he adds in a Note, De toutes les occupations une des plus vaines c'est, sans doute, celle de faire une Bibliotheque-pour ne s'en servir jumais.

IN the Preface to the first Catalogue of the Sion College Library, Mr. Spencer complains of an apartment too spacious for

* See, also, his Epist. II. 45., Lucian's Igaç amaideurov naι modar Bifhia vou plavov, and Ausonius' Epigr. XLIII. Duport, also, has some good lambics, in his Mus. Subsec. p. 349.

In Illiteratum quendam libris abundantem ;

as well as some indifferent punning upon Books in general, in a preceding page and a remark on the rich and well-bestowed library of the Cambridgeshire Member, Sir Thomas Wendy

Nec libros habuisse sat est. Nil penna, sed usus.

it's contents, that curta supellex soon to be made still more scanty by the Fire of 1666. My experience being, as I have before observed, of an opposite description, amidst my embarras des richesses I have found my literary wealth rendered most accessible and available by the Alphabetical principle of arrangeinent. In drawing up the subjoined Catalogue, it was originally my intention to have marked by Asterisks (*, **, and ***) the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of scarcity of my different treasures: but I soon perceived that, like the reader of Livy who, having underlined the passages he admired, found he had scored the whole book, I should have made my page

Dark with excessive bright.

A similar reason restrained me from adding (what I at first meditated) the Names of the high ecclesiastical authorities, Watson, Cleaver, Tomline, &c. by whom many of the DivinityVolumes have been especially recommended to the theological student and as to Prices, they vary too much in the estimates even of contemporaries-to say nothing of the differences of condition, and the fluctuations of fashion-to admit of being stated with any exactness.

WITH regard to my Notes,* of which this Preface may in some respects be deemed a tolerably fair specimen, as it has always been my custom nihil ferè legere quod non excerperem, it

* "Un serie d'intitulés, copiés avec exactitude, est assez pour un Catalogue de Vente mais un Amateur, qui met le public dans la confidence du contenu de sa Bibliotheque, doit offrir quelque chose à l'instruction, et même à la curiosité, à la fantaisie”. (Caillard.)

'Notes', says some one, if any where, must be most correctly found in Catalogues of Libraries, which are neither Public nor on Sale. In these, it is merely necessary to give the titles, whether the object be to consult, or to purchase. In Sale-Catalogues in particular, the skilful Collector sees with concern the eyes of the public opened by notices of this description; and a host of rivals summoned into the field, when he might otherwise have walked over the course'.