The First English Book Sale18
There are many points in the history of books and of book-collecting which are still tantalisingly obscure. How little we know about the prices of early books, the cost of printing, the relations of printer and publisher or of publisher and author! With the exception of a few royal personages and a few men and women of great wealth and rank, the book-collectors of the two centuries which succeeded the invention of printing are hardly known to us, even by name. A few have gained immortality among book-lovers by clothing their books in priceless bindings; others, like Sir Thomas Bodley, have won a nobler renown by founding libraries in which students should have free access to their treasures. But of the rank and file of the early collectors, the men who bought books not by the cartload, but with individual thought and care, according to the length of purses easily exhaustible—of these for two centuries we know little or nothing. If it had not been for an indiscreet pamphlet published by an English theologian in Holland, our ignorance about English book-collectors might have lasted indefinitely longer. But during his brief stay in his native land the pamphleteer introduced into this country the custom of selling by auction the books of dead collectors, and from the year 1676, when this practice was first adopted, our knowledge about English libraries becomes abundant.
It is not a little curious in itself that we should be able to say with precision that at nine o’clock of the morning, on October 31, 1676, at the house of Dr. Lazarus Seaman, in Warwick Court, Warwick Lane, began the first book auction that ever took place in England. But we can do much more than this. The little world of book-collectors was immensely taken with this new method of book-buying. The catalogues of the first auctions soon came to be regarded as curiosities, and the price fetched by each lot was carefully recorded. The auctioneers were no less interested. They wrote prefaces to the catalogue of each sale, giving us their reasons for the various auction rules, which soon came to assume a form closely similar to those now in use at Sotheby’s or Puttick and Simpson’s. Moreover, at the end of ten years Thomas Cooper, the leading auctioneer of the time, printed an exact list of the seventy-three sales which had taken place since the introduction of the practice into England, and eleven years later another famous member of the fraternity wrote the following letter, which has recently been acquired by the British Museum, and supplies us with the one link which was needed to complete our chain of information on the subject.
The letter forms part of the ‘Dering Correspondence,’ which stretches from the reign of James the First to that of George the Second (Stowe ms. 709). It has the double endorsement: (i) ‘Mr. Millington, the noted auctioneer, to Mr. Jos. Hill,’ and (ii) ‘Millington’s letter acknowledginge the usefulnesse of sellinge Libraryes by Auction.’ Here is the text of the part which now concerns us:—
‘Lond. June 25, 1697.
‘Reverend Sr,
‘I have designd severall Times to wait of sic you when in England to present my service and tender my thanks for your great Service done to Learning & Learned men in your first advising & effectually setting on foot that admirable & universally approved of way of selling Librarys by Auction amongst us. A son of a worthy ffreind of mine, being now in Rotterdam in order to get some Employment there, offering me the Conveyance of mine to your hand, I presume of your Candour to receive my acknowledgements and gratefull Resentments for the knowledge I have got and the benefit I have received by their management, having for severall yeares strenuously Pursued what you, sire, happily Introduced the Practice of into England. I Design you some Catalogues of the Library of Dr Edward Bernard, late Astronomy Professor in Oxford, in which you will find Curious Manuscripts, Libri Impressi collati cum Codicibus MSS., etc’
The letter proceeds to enlarge at some length on Dr. Bernard’s books, the best part of which, by the way, had been presented to the Bodleian, and then, with an apology for the writer’s presumption in addressing Dr. Hill, is duly signed, ‘Your obliged humble servant, D. Millington.’ It tells us, it will be observed, with the aid of the emphatic underscoring here represented by italics, that it was Dr. Hill who had ‘first advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries by auction amongst us,’ and we can see exactly how he came to start the practice.
Joseph Hill was one of the most earnest and the most moderate of the seventeenth-century Presbyterians. His father, Joshua, is said to have died a few minutes before the archbishop’s apparitor arrived to cite him for not wearing a surplice; but though the objection to Church discipline was thus hereditary, it does not seem to have been intensified in Joseph. A distinguished career at Cambridge was closed by his refusal to take the oath enjoined by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and the University authorities ‘cut his name out of the books in kindness to him,’ to prevent his being formally ejected from his offices. Hill took refuge at Leyden, and was soon appointed to the charge of the Scottish Church at Middleburg in Zeeland. But though a refugee, he remained English at heart, and in 1672 wrote a pamphlet, entitled ‘The Interest of these United Provinces, being a Defence of the Zeelander’s Choice.’ It will be remembered that by the secret Treaty of Dover, concluded between Charles II. and the French king in 1670, Charles was to aid Louis against the Dutch, and receive as part of his reward the province of Zeeland. The French invasion took place in 1672, and it was at this crisis that Hill wrote his pamphlet, which contains a defence of the English king. Though completed on November 30, 1672, it did not appear till April of the next year, when the author at last obtained a publisher, though at the cost of no less a sum than one hundred pounds. In the following August he was ordered to leave Zeeland till the war was over, and on returning to England was rewarded by Charles with a pension of £80, and the offer of a bishopric as the price of his conformity. The offer was declined, and in 1678 Hill returned to Holland, accepting a post at Rotterdam, where we find him when the grateful Millington wrote his letter of acknowledgment in 1695, and where he died in 1707.
When Hill came over to receive the reward of his patriotism in England, he would naturally have revived his acquaintance with an old Cambridge don, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, with whom he had many tastes in common. Seaman had been Master of Peterhouse and Vice-Chancellor of the University. He had written pamphlets endeavouring to keep the Presbyterians in the Church by minimising the importance of episcopal orders, and was just on the right side of the line which shut Hill out from the proffered bishopric. Both were book collectors, both were classical scholars, and when Seaman died during Hill’s stay in London, we may be quite sure that Hill was among his mourners.
Seaman’s funeral was no small affair. Two broadsides of not wholly despicable verse are still extant to attest his popularity. One is entitled ‘An Elegie to the endeared Memory of that Learned and Reverend Minister of the Gospel, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, who died on Friday, the 3rd of September, 1675, and was carried from Drapers’ Hall to be interred, with a numerous train of Christian friends bewailing his Death.’ The other broadside, which contains the better verse, is more simply inscribed ‘An Elegy on the Reverend and Learned Divine, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, sometime Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Master of Peterhouse, and late Minister of the Gospel in All Hallows, Bread Street.’ Even of this, however, the first six lines may suffice as a specimen:
‘What! Seaman dead! and did no blazing star,
No comet béforehand his Death declare?
What, Merlin, not a word of this in thee?
Lilly’s but half a prophet now I see:
For had he known it, he’d have quickly said,
This year Presbýtery shall lose its head.’
In no less conceited a vein, but more successful, is the proposed epitaph, the last line of which is really an inspiration:
‘Reader, if that thou learned art
O do not urge me to impart
What ’tis I cover; for I fear
Thou’lt be so eager to lie here,
And wish thy life might straight expire.
And wish thy life might straight expire.
Then ask no more, but away go
And send th’ unlearned, they may know.
I’ll tell none else, for here does lie
Entomb’d a University.’
Thus was the worthy doctor bewailed and buried, and soon his executors were busy realising his effects. What was to be done with his five or six thousand books? He had bequeathed them to no library, and to sell them to the booksellers was to give them away. It was here, then, that Dr. Hill stepped in and ‘advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries by auction,’ which had long been the practice in Holland, but as yet was quite unknown in this country. The arrangements were soon made, and a catalogue duly printed, for whose title-page no less learned a language than Latin would serve, though we regret to have to note that the worthy William Cooper who compiled it was a sufficiently poor scholar to head one of his sections ‘Bibliae Variae,’ as if ‘Biblia’ were a feminine singular of the first declension. The Latin of the title-page is of a kind which every one can read, so that for the sake of completeness we quote it as it stands:—
‘Catalogus variorum & insignium librorum instructissimæ bibliothecæ clarissimi doctissimiq; viri Lazari Seaman, S.T.D., quorum Auctio habebitur Londoni in ædibus Defuncti in Area & Viculo Warwicensi, Octobris ultimo. Cura Gulielmi Cooper Bibliopolæ.’
Probably under Dr. Hill’s guidance Cooper also drew up the following preface, the rules given in which, as we have already noted, are the progenitors of those still in use in the present day, in which, indeed, some of their actual phrases may be found enshrined.
‘To the Reader.
‘Reader,
‘It hath not been usual here in England to make sales of Books by way of Auction, or who will give most for them: But it having been practised in other Countreys to the Advantage both of Buyers and Sellers; It was therefore conceived (for the encouragement of Learning) to publish the Sale of these Books, this manner of way; and it is hoped that this will not be unacceptable to Schollers; and therefore we thought it convenient to give an Advertisement concerning the manner of proceeding therein.
‘First, That having this Catalogue of the Books, and their Editions under their several Heads and Numbers, it will be more easie for any Person of Quality, Gentlemen, or others, to Depute any one to Buy such Books for them as they shall desire, if their occasions will not permit them to be present at the Auction themselves.
‘Secondly, That those which bid most are the Buyers; and if any manifest differences should arise, that then the same book or books shall be forthwith exposed again to Sale, and the highest bidder to have the same.
‘Thirdly, That all the Books according to the Catalogue are (for so much as we know) perfect, and sold as such; But if any of them appear to be otherwise before they be taken away, the Buyer shall have his choice of taking or leaving the same.
‘Fourthly, That the money for the Books bought, be paid at the delivery of them, within one Month’s time after the Auction is ended.
‘Fifthly, That the Auction will begin the 31st of October at the Deceased Dr.’s House in Warwick Court in Warwick lane, punctually at Nine of the Clock in the Morning, and Two in the Afternoon, and this to continue daily until all the Books be sold; Wherefore it is desired that the Gentlemen, or those Deputed by them, may be there precisely at the Hours appointed, lest they should miss the opportunity of Buying these Books, which either themselves or their Friends desire.’
In subsequent auctions these rules were repeated, with but slight alterations and the addition of a ‘Lastly’ to the effect that
‘If any Gentleman have a desire to view or see any or all of these Books in this Catalogue, or to satisfie themselves in the Conditions and Editions of any of them, they shall be very Welcome to the place aforenamed at any time before the day that the Sale begins.’
To facilitate this inspection subsequent sales were held, not at the deceased collector’s house, but at some more convenient place, that from which this rule is quoted, Kidner’s sale (February 6, 1677), taking place ‘at the sign of the King’s head in Little Britain,’ possibly a tavern, but more probably the name of the bookseller’s shop. It is to Dr. Seaman’s house, however, in Warwick Court, that we must take our way at nine o’clock on the morning of October 31, 1676, if we wish to be present at the first English book sale. We shall have Cooper’s catalogue in our hands, and note that he has inaugurated the practice, which still makes auction catalogues as difficult to consult as a Bradshaw, of dividing according to their sizes books in folio, in quarto, in octavo, and in duodecimo. He further divides each size of books according to their subjects: ‘Patres Graeci,’ ‘Patres Latini,’ ‘Biblia,’ ‘Libri Theologici,’ ‘Theologi Scholastici,’ ‘Scriptores in Scripturam,’ etc., so that we have no little difficulty in finding out if the particular books of which we are in want are included in the good Doctor’s library. As we enter the house we probably find it very full. There are friends of Dr. Seaman’s anxious for his books to sell well; poor Divinity students hopeful of picking up a few volumes cheaply; professed book-collectors, who care little for theology, but have an eye on some of the classics, and are curious to see how this new departure will succeed; and a little knot of booksellers, also curious, but on the whole unfriendly. Will. Cooper ascends an impromptu rostrum, an assistant hands up a long set of the works of S. Chrysostom, in Greek and Latin (Paris, 1636), and the bidding begins. If any invocation would persuade the Muse of Learning to tell us ‘who first, who last upraised his voice to bid,’ that invocation should duly be made. But in the absence of documents the Muse usually abandons us severely to our own imagination, and we are left to wonder whether it was friend, or poor student, or rich collector who made the first bid at the first English book auction. Probably it was one of the last class who secured the prize, for the great Chrysostom fetched no less than £8, 5s., nearly a quarter’s income for some of the poorer clergy of those days. This was the highest price fetched by any book in the sale, but its immediate successors were all respectable. A set of the records of General and Provincial Councils (Paris, 1636) fetched £5, 3s.; the works of S. Cyril (Paris, 1638), £5, 1s.; of Theodoret (1642), £4, 8s., and of Epiphanius (1622), £3, 2s. 6d. Thus the first five lots produced twenty-six pounds all but sixpence, and it may greatly be doubted whether, despite the smaller purchasing power of money in these days, they would fetch as much as this if put up to auction at any of our modern sales.
The next twenty books averaged something over a pound apiece, and the prices languished till this division of the sale was over, and the ‘Patres Graeci’ were succeeded by the ‘Patres Latini,’ the works of S. Augustine (Froben’s edition, 1569) heading the list at £5, 15s. Among the editions of the Bible, ‘Bibliae variae,’ as the auctioneer called them, the London Polyglot of 1657 was facile princeps, fetching no less than £8, 2s., or within three shillings of the top price of the sale. Rabbinical literature was the next division taken, and here it is curious to note that no single work fetched as much as a sovereign. Then came long rows of classics and theology, with nothing to call for remark till we come to the books of English divinity, among which Fox’s ‘Martyrs’ (London, 1641) fetched as much as £3, 5s. Among the English philologists, a very miscellaneous section, Raleigh’s ‘History of the World’ went for £1, 6s., and Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ (Oxford, 1638) for 6s. Even the latter was not much of a bargain, for it is the first edition (1621), the one in quarto, which is now so highly prized.
When the folios were all sold, the smaller sizes were taken in their order, but either the collectors of the seventeenth century (very unlike in this to their modern successors) valued a book in proportion to its bulk, or else the novelty of the bidding was exhausted. Certainly we have no more high prices to record, and the auctioneer, after a time, had recourse to selling books in bundles or batches. The Oriental works went badly, probably because few could read them; the English divinity, which were sold ten and twenty together, at from a florin to fifteen shillings the lot, even worse, because Dr. Seaman’s theology was now discountenanced by Churchmen, and the pockets of the Dissenters were ill furnished. We note a few pearls among these dusty tomes. Fletcher’s ‘Purple Island’ (1633) was sold with six dull tracts for 5s., and Bacon’s ‘Advancement of Learning’ (1605) for 1s. The pamphlets of the Civil War went fairly well, but a collection, which would now be held priceless, of thirty-two tracts on the relation of England and Spain from 1585 to 1591 realised no more than 8s.
The total sum gained by the sale is stated as about £700, a result which I have not had the industry to check by adding together the prices of all the different lots. My impression is that it is rather an under-estimate. Taking it as correct, we may guess the average sum realised by each book as about 3s., for there are 137 pages in the Catalogue, and from 35 to 40 books catalogued on each page, or a total of somewhere about 5,000. A scholar’s library, especially a theological scholar’s, always sells badly—unless I am mistaken, Bishop Thirwall’s books only averaged about 2s. each—and Dr. Seaman’s executors probably congratulated themselves on the result of this new method of disposing of old books. They had realised more than could possibly have been obtained on an enforced sale to a single bookseller, and on the other hand, after the ardour of competition for the first few lots had subsided, buyers were able to make bargains which the booksellers would never have allowed them. Every one, save the booksellers, was pleased, and both the general satisfaction and the one discordant note which marred it, are reflected in the preface which the auctioneer wrote for the second book sale, which took place some four months after the first. Here he says:
‘The first Attempt in this kind (by the Sale of Dr. Seaman’s Library) having given great Content and Satisfaction to the Gentlemen who were the Buyers, and no great Discouragement to the Sellers, hath Encouraged the making this second Trial, by the exposing (to Auction or Sale) the Library of Mr. Tho. Kidner, in hopes of receiving such Encouragement from the Learned as may prevent the Stifling of this manner of Sale, the Benefit (if rightly considered) being equally Balanced between Buyer and Seller.’
There was a danger, we see, of this manner of sale being ‘stifled,’ and subsequent prefaces show us that the danger came from reports spread by the retail booksellers that the bidding was not always genuine. To meet these reports the auctioneers for a long time refused to accept commissions to bid themselves, lest they should be accused of bidding when there was no commission behind them, merely to run up prices against genuine purchasers. A new rule was also passed, obliging strangers from the country either to pay for and remove books as soon as they were knocked down to them, or else to bid through citizens of reputation, ’and this is the rather desired that all suspicions may be removed of any Strangers appearing there to bid and enhance the Price to others without ever intending to send for what they so buy themselves.’
Fenced round with these regulations, the institution of selling books by auction grew and flourished, so that, as we have said, at the end of the first ten years of its existence no fewer than seventy-three such auctions had taken place. It has certainly made book-collecting a more exciting and more picturesque practice than it could otherwise have been, and enables us not only to reconstruct the library of any famous collector, but often to trace the history of a particular book in a very pleasant and interesting manner. Thus the copy of Dr. Seaman’s Catalogue and the two Elegies on his death, at which we have been looking, all once belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, the author of ‘Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs,’ 1678-1714. According to the crabbed notes of the antiquary Hearne, whom he had offended by refusing to lend him books, Luttrell was not only a book-collector but a miser, who would not have given the judges and other dignitaries who attended his funeral (in 1732) ‘a meal’s meat’ while he was alive. But he was ‘well-known for his curious library, especially for the number and scarcity of [books on] English history and antiquities, which he collected in a lucky hour at very reasonable rates.’ After Luttrell’s death, his copy of Seaman’s Catalogue passed into the collection of the antiquary Gough, and then into that of the celebrated Richard Heber, perhaps the greatest of all English book-collectors. At Heber’s sale it was acquired by the British Museum, and its literary pedigree thereby closed. But the possession of such a pedigree adds very greatly to the interest of a book in the eyes of book-lovers, and so far as the institution of sales by auction has increased our knowledge of the book-collectors of the past, we have every reason to be grateful to Dr. Joseph Hill who, to return to our text, ‘first advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries.’