LAST PAGE OF A.L.S. OF ELIZABETH CHUDLEIGH, DUCHESS OF KINGSTON, AT ST. PETERSBURG, TO MISS CHUDLEIGH, AT BATH.
WARRANT SIGNED BY WARREN HASTINGS, PHILIP FRANCIS, EDWARD WHEELER, AND EYRE COOTE, MAY 31, 1780.
CHAPTER I
ON AUTOGRAPH COLLECTING GENERALLY
Autograph collecting in relation to kindred hobbies—The genesis of the autograph—Examples of the alba amicorum of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—The conscript fathers of autograph collecting—Franks and their votaries—Album specimens and their value—The autograph-hunter and his unconscious victims—Anecdotes of some recent autograph "draws"
There can be no doubt that the handwriting of a man is related to his thought and character, and that we may therefore gain a certain impression of his ordinary mode of life and conduct.—Goethe to Cardinal Preusker.
My friend Judge Philbrick, for some time President of the Royal Philatelic Society of London, tells me that the stamps known to collectors as the Post Office Mauritius "fetch anything." In his opinion a pair of fine examples of the 1d. red and 2d. blue would easily make £2,500. He believes the King, when Prince of Wales, gave £1,500 for a single specimen. A set of the rarest issues of Sandwich Island stamps would be worth from £1,500 to £2,000, and there are at least twenty or thirty varieties which sell at something between £50 and £100. As a matter of fact, I believe the single "Mauritius Post Office" referred to exchanged hands in January 1904, at no less a figure than £1,950, and that at a moment when much excitement was caused in autographic circles by the appearance at Sotheby's of thirty-three pages of the MS. of "Paradise Lost," once the property of Jacob Tonson the publisher. The ultimate fate of this precious MS. will be referred to in connection with the subject of Milton's autographs, but it may be noted that in the same month a series of seven superb folio holograph letters of Napoleon, written during his first campaign in Italy, when his handwriting was still legible and his signature not the perplexing variation of scratches and blots of later days, was knocked down at the comparatively modest figure of £350, or less than one-fifth of the sum paid for the "Mauritius Post Office"! Before me lie several of the priced catalogues of the Sotheby autograph auctions of six years ago. Very few of the totals realised at these sales approached the price paid for this single stamp. At one of them Nelson's original letter-book of 1796-97, including the original drafts of 67 letters (many of them of first-rate importance) failed to fetch more than £190, while a two days' sale (that of December 5 and 6, 1904) brought only an aggregate sum of £1,009 16s., notwithstanding the fact that the 416 lots disposed of comprised a splendid series of Johnson and Thrale letters, a series of S. T. Coleridge MSS., and fine examples of letters by Pope, Richardson, Marvell, Burke, Boswell, Goldsmith, Garrick, Nelson, and Lady Hamilton, together with historical documents signed by Queen Elizabeth, the two Charleses, Oliver Cromwell, and Queen Anne. The items thus disposed of would in themselves have made a fine collection if acquired by any one owner, for they represent the most interesting phases of our national annals, and they might have been acquired en bloc for £940, less than half the cost of that one most expensive stamp. Far be it from me to disparage a sister "hobby." All I seek to prove is that autograph collection has moderation in price to recommend it, as well as that inherent interest which Mr. Joline alludes to as "the gentlest of emotions."
In theory, at any rate, the lover of autographs can claim for his favourite pursuit an antiquity of origin which no print collector or philatelist, however enthusiastic, can possibly pretend to. In some shape or another MSS. were highly prized by the ancient Egyptians as well as the Greeks and Romans. The word "autograph" first occurs in the writings of Suetonius. We learn on good authority that Ptolemy stole the archives of the Athenians and replaced the originals with cunningly devised copies; Pliny and Cicero were both collectors after the manner of the time in which they lived; Nero recorded his impressions in pocket-books, and manuscripts of untold importance are supposed to lie buried in the lava-covered dwellings of Herculaneum. The Chinese, too, at a very remote period of their national existence were wont to decorate their temples with the writing or the sign-manuals of their defunct rulers. The Emperors Justinian and Theodoric are both reputed to have affixed their signatures by the aid of a perforated tin plate; and the mystery which attaches itself to the Epistles of Phalaris still awaits some definite solution. These, and a dozen other similar topics, may concern the history of writing in the abstract, but they are strange to the question of the genesis of the modern autograph in the sense already sufficiently defined and as considered from the collector's point of view.
By the irony of fate the origin of autograph collecting, as we now understand it, is clearly traced to the alba amicorum of the latter part of the sixteenth and the first decades of the seventeenth century. Men and women of light and leading were accustomed to carry about oblong volumes of vellum, on which their friends and acquaintances were requested to write some motto or phrase under his or her signature. Several interesting examples of these alba are to be seen amongst the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. The earliest of them (No. 851) bears the date 1579. It commences with the motto and signature of the Duc d'Alençon, the suitor of our Virgin Queen. He has attempted a sketch, something like a fire, under which are the words "Fovet et disqutit Francoys," and below, "Me servir quy mestre Farnagues."
No. 3,416 is bound in green velvet with the arms of the writers beautifully emblazoned on each page. On one of these the Duke of Holst, brother-in-law of James I., has written:—
It was in the album amicorum of Christopher Arnold, Professor of History at Nuremberg, that the author of "Paradise Lost" wrote
In weakness I am made perfect.
To that most learned man, and my courteous friend, Christopher Arnold, have I given this, in token of his virtue, as well as of my good will towards him.
John Milton.
London, A.D. 1651, Nov. 19.
To the album of Charles de Bousy (No. 3,415) Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, has contributed a motto neatly written in six languages. Late in the nineteenth century these ancient alba had their counterpart in the books of questions which, for a brief period, found favour in the eyes of the British hostess with a literary turn of mind. A page thus filled up by the late Duke of Coburg (Prince Alfred of England) is in my collection. In it the writer with perfect frankness discloses his ideas of happiness and misery, his favourite poets, painters, and composers, his pet aversions and the characters in history he most dislikes. The sheet of this modern album amicorum fetched one sovereign in the open market, and in many ways the views of the Duke are as interesting as those of the princes and poets who yielded to the entreaties of Charles de Bousy and Christopher Arnold.
In these early alba the interest of the handwriting formed the predominant attraction, but with the succeeding generations of collectors who gathered together stores of priceless MSS. the point of interest was almost entirely historical. It was reserved for the nineteenth century connoisseur to combine the interest which is purely historical with that which centres in the writer and the writing of any given letter or document. The value of the services rendered to the cause of history by men like Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631), John Evelyn (1620-1706), Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (1661-1724), Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford (1689-1741), and Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) cannot possibly be over-estimated.
Robert Harley purchased the papers accumulated by Fox, Stow, and D'Ewes, and the Harleian and Sloane MSS. form to-day a most important portion of the national collection in the British Museum. Thomas Hearne (1678-1735) laboured industriously at Oxford on the same lines as Robert Harley and Hans Sloane. He is said to have made each important discovery of autographic treasure-trove the subject of a devout thanksgiving.
Good work was done about the same time by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725) and Peter Le Neve (1661-1729). Manuscripts entered largely into the "Museum of Rarities" formed by the first named, and the MSS. of the latter are now in the Bodleian Library and the Heralds' College. A little later came James West (1704-1772). Between 1741 and 1762 he held the office of Joint-secretary to the Treasury, and from 1746 till his death he was Recorder of Poole. Among other curiosities he got together a large number of valuable MSS. Born four years before West, James Bindley lived till 1818, thus becoming a contemporary of Upcott, Dawson Turner, and other early nineteenth-century collectors who prepared the way for the great work since accomplished by Mr. Alfred Morrison and others.
It now becomes necessary to say something of the "frank," which for more than an entire century exercised the minds of men and women in every condition of life to an extent it is now almost impossible to understand. The interest in the "frank" was philatelic as well as autographic, but no "frank" ever attained the high position now held by a Post Office Mauritius or early Sandwich stamp. The story of the "frank" is briefly thus: The right to send letters free of charge was claimed by Members of Parliament as far back as the reign of James I. It was fully discussed in the Commons immediately after the Restoration, and the claim was affirmed, although the Speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimston, refused to put a motion which he stigmatised as "a poor mendicant proviso unworthy of the honour of the House." The Lords rejected the Bill, because apparently the privilege was not to be extended to them, but it was eventually conceded to members of both Houses. The grossest abuses were soon committed. Under the cover of the "frank" fifteen couple of hounds were sent to the King of the Romans; "two maid-servants going out as laundresses" were forwarded to "My Lord Ambassador Methuen," two bales of stockings found their way, "post free," to our representative at the Court of Portugal. The "frank" was continually used for the transit of live deer, turkeys, and haunches of venison. In Queen Anne's time its operation was limited to packets weighing two ounces or less, and in the fourth year of George III. it was enacted that the "franking" Peer or M.P. should write the whole address and date on each letter. In 1795 the maximum weight of a "franked" letter was reduced to one ounce, and in 1840, on the institution of Sir Rowland Hill's penny postage system, the privilege (except in one or two special cases) was entirely abolished. Mr. Bailie, of Ringdufferin, Killyleagh, Co. Down, was one of the last of the frank-collecting enthusiasts. About twenty years ago he thus wrote to the Archivist:—
"Although no further limitation or alteration was made between 1795 and 1840, great abuses still existed. Members supplied larger packets of franks to friends and adherents; some sold their privilege for large sums to banking and business firms; they also accepted douceurs for allowing letters to be directed to them, although intended for other persons, and servants' wages were frequently paid by franks, which were subsequently sold by them to tradesmen and others. It was computed that a banking house, having one of the firm an M.P., effected thereby a saving of £700 a year. In one week of November, 1836, about 94,700 franks passed through the London post alone, and in 1837 there were 7,400,000 franked letters posted. From 1818 to 1837 it was estimated that £1,400,000 had been lost to the Post Office through the franking system." The privilege was abolished on July 10, 1840, the only exception made being in favour of the late Queen's own letters and a few Government Departments.
The Inspectors of Franks in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh were highly paid and important officials. Mr. William Tayleure, of Adelaide Street, West Strand, headed a long list of dealers in "franks." "Frank" auctions, prior to 1840, were as common as stamp auctions are to-day, and amongst the best known "frank" collectors were Lady Chatham (the daughter-in-law of the "Great Commoner"), Lord William FitzRoy and Mr. Blott, Inspector of Franks at the G.P.O. Mr. Bailie eventually became possessor of the Chatham and FitzRoy collections. He could boast of possessing the "frank" of every Peer since the Union, with the single exception of F. A. Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry.
For three generations at least one of the principal objects in life seems to have been the gratuitous acquisition of "franks." When James Beattie visited the Thrales of Streatham, his supreme delight lay in having secured six "franks" and the promise of a further supply; millionaires excused their epistolary silence on the plea of the difficulty to "get" a "frank," and even late in the "eighteen-thirties" Benjamin Disraeli wrote to his sister that he was sure that the sight of an unprivileged (i.e., unfranked) letter on the Bradenham breakfast-table would cause the death of his venerable father.
The witty letters of Joseph Jekyll abound in amusing allusions to "franks." One day he writes, "Don't go into histericks at a Radical frank of Burdett's"; on another occasion, "I have bribed the Attorney-General for this frank," and again, "I postponed payment till the immaculate electors of Stockbridge had agreed to save ninepence out of your pin-money." Writing to Lady Blessington the Nestor of beaux esprits says: "I trust this will reach you if the Post Office can decipher my friend Wetherell's hieroglyphical frank, but Tories always make a bad hand of it."
Collections of "franks" like those of Mr. Bailie must still have some value. It is now difficult to obtain isolated examples, and to my mind they are infinitely more interesting, from every point of view, than detached signatures of individuals, however celebrated, and the great majority of "album specimens."
An "album specimen" is a letter or signature obtained in answer to a request for an autograph. If the demand is made point-blank, the reply is rarely of any real value.
There are, of course, many exceptions to the rule. I have already alluded to the page of the "Confessions" Book filled up by the late Duke of Coburg. Bismarck is said to have been requested to add something on the page of an autograph album which already contained the autographs of Guizot and Thiers. The former had written, "I have learned in my long life two rules of prudence. The first is to forgive much; the second, never to forget." Thiers had placed below this the sentence, "A little forgetting would not detract from the sincerity of the forgiveness." Bismarck continued, "As for me, I have learnt to forget much, and to be asked to be forgiven much." I should not be surprised if the page of that album with the conjunction of these three great names yielded a record price.
It is the persistent seeker for "album specimens" who is known in America as the "Autograph Fiend," and on this side as the "Autograph Hunter." Possibly in the United States this type of collector is more aggressive than his English confrère. Longfellow was an early victim of the "A. F." In his diary he plaintively mentions the necessity of complying with thirty or forty requests of this kind. On January 9, 1857, matters reached a climax. On that day he made the following entry in his journal: "To-day I wrote, sealed, and dictated seventy autographs." Other celebrities were less complacent than the persecuted poet. "George Eliot" generally instructed Mr. Lewes to write a point-blank refusal, and an Archbishop of York intended to follow her example, but unintentionally delighted his tormentor with the signed reply, "Sir, I never give my autograph, and never will." Frowde was in the habit of replying after this fashion:—
Dear Sir,—Mr. Weller's friend (or perhaps Mr. Weller himself) would say that "autographs is vanity!"—but since you wish for mine, I subscribe myself,
Faithfully yours,
J. A. Frowde.
Mr. Joline shows little mercy to such applicants. Lord Rosebery replies to a similar application:—
Lord Rosebery presents his compliments to Miss C., and would rather not make her collection and himself ridiculous by sending it the autograph of so insignificant a person.
An exceptionally considerate type of autograph-hunter succeeded in extracting the following charming note from the late R. L. Stevenson:—
Vailima, Upolu, Samoa.
You have sent me a slip to write on; you have sent me an addressed envelope; you have sent it me stamped; many have done as much before. You have spelled my name right, and some have done that. In one point you stand alone: you have sent me the stamps for my post office, not the stamps for yours. What is asked with so much consideration I take a pleasure to grant. Here, since you value it, and have been at the pains to earn it by such unusual attentions—here is the signature,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
For the one civil autograph collector, Charles R.
Poe, like Longfellow, was merciful to his autograph-seeking correspondents, and their name was legion. In his opinion, "The feeling which prompts to the collection of autographs is a natural and rational one." Thackeray and Dickens were equally considerate in the matter of these autograph petitions. More years ago than I care to recollect a young cousin of mine wrote to the former, and received, almost by return of post, a signed and dated card with a clever little sketch of a young lady inspecting an album. At the present moment this particular "specimen" is worth at least £10.
The most successful type of "Autograph Fiend" is the man who is able, on some clever pretence, to extract a letter of real interest and importance from his unconscious victim. Since I began to collect I have carefully watched the operation of these pious frauds, and am often astonished at the ease with which political, literary, and artistic celebrities fall into an all too transparent trap. Portrait painters are ready to send estimates to persons they never heard of; grave theologians are led by impostors into discussions on abstruse questions of faith and belief; astute statesmen like Mr. Chamberlain are induced to enlarge on burning problems of the hour; and venerable artists like Sir John Tenniel are apparently ready to furnish two pages of reminiscences for the mere asking. In the "eighteen-fifties" a swindler named Ludovic Picard acquired a really valuable series of autographs by writing to men like Béranger, Heine, Montalembert, and Lacordaire letters in which he posed as one of "the odious race of the unappreciated who meditated suicide, and sought in his hour of sore distress for valuable counsel and advice." Lacordaire sent him ten closely-written pages of earnest appeal, and Charles Dickens, who happened to be at Boulogne, fell an easy victim to the wiles of "Miserrimus," who was finally unmasked by Jules Sandeau while carousing with a party of boon companions at a tavern. Dickens wrote as follows:—
Voici encore de bons remèdes contre votre affliction! Surtout, on doit se souvenir constamment de la bonté du grand Dieu, des beautés de la nature, et de si touchantes félicités et misères de ces pauvres voisins dans cette vie de vicissitudes. Voici encore une manière de s'élever le cœur et l'âme, depuis les ténèbres de la terre jusqu'à la clarté du ciel. Courage, courage! C'est le voyageur faible qui succombe et qui meurt. C'est le brave homme qui persévère, et qui poursuit son voyage jusqu'à la fin. Votre cas a été le cas d'une immense foule d'hommes, dont les cœurs courageux ont été victorieux, triomphants, heureux.
A query sent to Sir John Tenniel on the subject of the private theatricals at Charles Dickens's elicited this interesting letter:—
October 13, 1903.
Dear Sir,—With many apologies for the delay, absolutely unavoidable, I have much pleasure in offering you such information as the only surviving representative of the "Guild of Literature and Art" and a memory of over fifty years may be able to supply in answering your polite letter of the 8th inst. received on Saturday.
The first performance of "Not so Bad as we Seem," at Devonshire House, in the presence of the Queen, the Prince Consort, and the Court, most certainly took place on the 16th of May, 1851, just five months after I had joined the Punch staff.
But there was also a second grand performance of the play on the 27th, to which the friends of the actors and distinguished people were invited by special invitation of the Duke.
Happily, after an almost hopeless search, I have found the bill of the play (which please to return when done with) of that performance, which is identical with the first except that the farce of "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," by Dickens and Mark Lemon, was not produced for the delectation of "Royalty"! Bill will also give you the names of the dramatis personæ, and you will see that the names of Maclise and Leech are not included in the list.
The last-named characters, some with only a line, some with none, were alluded to, and cheerfully, except by certain literary celebrities, and for myself "Hodge" was quite a good little part.
In the following year, however, owing to Forster's illness, the part of "Hardman" (a most important one) was at once assigned to me, and it is to that which Dickens alludes in his letter to Forster from Sunderland, August 29, 1852. I can hardly suppose that this letter can be of the least use to you, but
I am,
Faithfully yours,
John Tenniel.
TWO PAGES OF A.L.S. OF SIR JOHN TENNIEL, OF PUNCH, OBTAINED BY AN AUTOGRAPH-HUNTER, OCTOBER 13, 1903.
Within a month this letter figured in an autograph catalogue at the modest price of 12s.
A candid friend writes to the Earl of Rosebery that he is sorely troubled in conscience as to some difficulty which has arisen in connection with the Premier's patronage of the race-course. He obtains a reply, seemingly after some demur:—
October 13, 1895.
My dear ——, I did not the least in the world mean to imply the slightest shadow of blame to you for asking the question, which I do not doubt many other people are also asking. But for all that I am not able to answer it, and therefore you are unfettered in your treatment of it. It is strange, as regards my own position towards the Sporting League, Liberal candidates are abused on the ground that Liberals are opposed to sport, and then, on the other hand, the Nonconformist Conscience fires a broadside into him for what is thought to be too much allied to sport.
Yours very truly,
Rosebery.
Lord Rosebery's views on the elasticity of the Nonconformist conscience were sold for a crown, and the same price was asked and obtained for a letter most ingeniously obtained from Mr. Chamberlain in the very early days of Tariff Reform Agitation:—
September 18, 1903.
Dear Sir,—My correspondence is so enormous that I am compelled to dictate my letters even to my most intimate friends and relations, and the uncharitable suggestion that I am too proud to reply to workmen in my own handwriting is quite uncalled for.
I greatly appreciated your friendly letter and the compliment which you and your wife propose to pay me and which I readily accept. Tell me when the baby is to be baptized and exactly what you mean to call him, and I will see if I can find some little memento which may remind him in after years of his namesake.
Meanwhile I am glad to know that the tariff question is being discussed in your workshop. The time will come before long when all the working men will see how seriously their employment is threatened, and how necessary it is for them that the Colonial Markets should be kept open. The future of our trade depends on our relations with our kinsfolk across the seas, and if we do not seize the opportunity offered to us by them of increasing our trade with them we may not have another chance, but when we desire it may find that they have ceased to be willing. The Big Loaf cry is a sheer imposture. Nothing that I have proposed would increase the cost of living to any working man, and on the other hand it would give him the certainty of better trade and more employment. Wages, which depend upon employment, would tend to rise, and labour would gain all round.
We have had wonderfully good trade during the last two years, but there are signs approaching at present, and if they are fulfilled and every trade in London suffers from the free import of the surplus of foreign countries, the most bigoted Free Trader will regret that he was not wise in time and content to make preparation against the evil day.
Truly yours,
Joseph Chamberlain.
The "Autograph Fiend" in this case certainly deserves his name. He not only succeeds in obtaining an interesting letter, signed and carefully corrected by an ex-Cabinet Minister, which he is able to convert into five shillings, but he receives with it a promise that the writer will become the godfather of his real or supposed child!
Mr. Ruskin's total lack of sympathy with the autograph-hunter was notorious. He was also known to entertain a strong antipathy to a certain conventicle. The following response to a demand for subscription elicited a very characteristic reply, which was promptly converted into ten pounds. In the presence of such recent examples of successful autograph "draws" as these, there is no need to repeat the old story of the Duke of Wellington's reply to a fictitious demand for the payment of a washer-woman's bill said to be due from Lord Douro.
Mr. John Ruskin to a correspondent:—
I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world, the precisely less likely to give you a farthing. My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is, Don't get into debt. Starve and go to heaven—but don't borrow. Try first begging—I don't mind, if it's really needful, stealing. But don't buy things you can't pay for. And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can't pay for, are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can't you preach and pray behind the hedges—or in a sand-pit—or a coal-hole first? And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the damnablest to me. And of all sects of believers in ruling spirit—Hindoos, Turks, Feather Idolaters, and any Mumbo-jumbo, Log and Fire Worshippers, your modern English Evangelical sect is the most absurd, and entirely objectionable and unendurable to me. All which they might very easily have found out from my books—any other sort of sect would—before bothering me to write to them. Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant,
John Ruskin.
FROM THE PRELUDE OF "GERONTIUS," MS. BARS SIGNED BY SIR EDWARD ELGAR, SEPTEMBER, 1900.
Autograph-hunting on the basis now exposed is only pursued in the hope of gain from the sale of the letter thus obtained. To attempt to form a collection in such a manner might lead to very unpleasant consequences. The only innocent form of autograph-hunting is that so frequently witnessed at concerts and musical festivals, and the albums thus filled are ultimately sold for a price which would sadly disappoint the original owner. In the next chapter I shall endeavour to give the beginner in autograph collecting such information as will enable him not only to purchase genuine letters at the lowest possible price, but to arrange and classify them when so arranged to the greatest possible advantage. My firm conviction that at the present moment the judicious buying of autographs is one of the best possible investments, does not lessen the pleasure which we feel in examining those still-speaking relics of the past which enable us to say with Thomas Moore—
CHAPTER II
THE MODERN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR AND HIS
EQUIPMENT
Useful books on autographs—Collections of autograph facsimiles—The autograph markets of London and Paris—Variations in price—Autograph catalogues and dealers—The treatment and classification of autographs
Letters are appendices to History—the best instructors in History and the best histories in themselves.—Lord Bacon.
Scripta ferunt annos.—Ovid.
The modern autograph collector has certain advantages over his predecessors of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which will compensate him in some measure for the difficulty of procuring choice specimens at the prices which ruled twenty and even ten years ago. Foremost amongst these advantages is facility of access to such autographic treasure-houses as the British Museum, the Record Office, and the National Library at Paris. It was as recently as the late "eighteen-fifties" that the priceless archives of the old India Office were ruthlessly sacrificed by the lineal successors of "John Company." Amongst other valuable MSS. the archives of the Indian Navy went en bloc to the paper-mills. A single letter, blown accidentally from one of the carts used by the contractors who carried out this work of desolation, turned out to have been written in the reign of James I. by the Duke of Buckingham, and brought £5 to its finder. To-day it is probably worth at least five times as much again. The Record Office, in which such State documents and official correspondence as have survived the ignorance, carelessness, or iconoclasm of the past, now find a home, is, comparatively speaking, a modern institution. Notwithstanding the havoc wrought by the sans-culottes of the Terror and the Communists of forty years ago, the National Library in Paris is to-day the home of one of the most interesting collections of autographs in the whole world, including, it is said, something like ten thousand letters and documents written or signed by Napoleon. It is probably the result of the social upheavals of the past, and the wholesale dispersal of the contents of public and private muniment rooms towards the close of the eighteenth century, that autograph "finds" are more frequently made in Paris than anywhere else. It was there that I acquired the marriage settlement of Pamela FitzGerald,[1] executed at Tournay on December 26, 1792, and a sixteenth-century deed in which mention is made of a Royal Commission for the further exploration of Canada—La Canadie. Both of these documents cost less than 10s., and one of them, presented by me through Mr. Ross Robertson to the Public Library at Toronto, has now been framed, and is shown to visitors as a curiosity of the greatest interest and rarity. These great public institutions carry on in the twentieth century the good work commenced long ago by men like Evelyn, the Harleys, and Sloane.
The first thing I should advise an intending collector to do is to procure the "Guide to the MSS., Autographs, &c., exhibited in the Department of MSS. and in the Grenville Library of the British Museum."[2] This useful little volume contains no less than thirty plates of various descriptions, ranging from the articles of the Magna Charta and a page from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to Nelson's last letter to Lady Hamilton, and examples of the handwriting of Marlborough, Wellington, Washington, Chatham, and Keats. At the end is a list of the different series of autograph facsimiles issued at intervals since 1895, and sold at a very moderate price. Next to the careful study of original MSS., nothing is so important to the collector as the careful and constant examination of well-executed facsimiles like those obtainable at the British Museum, where, at the cost of 7s. 6d., you can get thirty plates. The first in order contains facsimiles of autograph letters by Queen Catharine of Aragon, 1513; Archbishop Cranmer, 1537; Bishop Hugh Latimer (marginal notes by Henry VIII.), about 1538; Edward VI., 1551; Mary, Queen of Scots, 1571; English Commanders against the Spanish Armada, 1588; Queen Elizabeth, 1603; Charles I., 1642; Oliver Cromwell, 1649; Charles II., 1660; James, Duke of Monmouth, 1685; William III., 1689; James Stuart, the Pretender, 1703; John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, 1706; William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1759; George III., 1760; George Washington, 1793; Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Emma, Lady Hamilton, 1805; Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, 1815; General Charles George Gordon, 1884; Queen Victoria, 1885; John Dryden, 1682; Joseph Addison, 1714; S. T. Coleridge, 1815; William Wordsworth, 1834; John Keats, 1820; Charles Dickens, 1870; W. M. Thackeray, 1851; Thomas Carlyle, 1832; and Robert Browning, 1868.
Numerous collections of facsimiles have been published in England, France, and Germany, and the prudent collector must secure one or more of these invaluable aids to the identification of MSS. Most of the best catalogues issued, both in London and Paris, contain several facsimiles, but that does not lessen the utility of books like "Autographs of Royal, Noble, Learned, and Remarkable Personages conspicuous in English History from the Reign of Richard II. to that of Charles II., with some illustrious Foreigners; containing many passages from important letters" (engraved under the direction of Charles John Smith and John Gough Nichols: London, 1829, 1 vol. 4to); or "A Collection of One Hundred Characteristic and Interesting Autograph Letters written by Royal and Distinguished Persons of Great Britain from the XV. to the XVIII. Century, copied in perfect facsimile from the originals by Joseph Nethercliff" (London, 1849). Several useful facsimiles are to be found in "A Guide to the Collector of Historical Documents, Literary MSS., and Autograph Letters," by the Rev. Dr. Scott and Mr. Samuel Davey, published in 1891. Dr. H. T. Scott is also responsible for a handy little volume, entitled "Autograph Collecting, a Practical Manual for Amateurs and Historical Students," brought out three years later than the larger volume by Mr. Upcott Gill.
It must be confessed, however, that our French neighbours are far ahead of us in the matter of facsimiles, as well as in other details connected with autograph collecting. With us the subject is only now beginning to receive the treatment it merits. In the opinion of our neighbours the cult of the autograph has for some generations held rank as a science. I cannot too strongly impress upon beginners the expediency of carefully watching the Paris autograph market, and giving special attention to the catalogues issued monthly by M. Noël Charavay, of 3, Rue Furstenberg, and Madame Veuve Gabriel Charavay, of 153, Faubourg St. Honoré. At the Fraser Sale (April, 1901) I purchased three huge volumes forming an extra-illustrated copy of a portion of the famous "Letters of Madame de Sévigné," compiled quite a century ago at the cost of several hundred pounds, and finally acquired by Miss Eliza Gulston. In it, in addition to an enormous number of prints and portraits, were several genuine autograph letters, supplemented by a large number of facsimiles. Under the genuine letters the maker of the book wrote their source and history; he divided the facsimiles into "tracings," "imitations by hand," and so forth. A copy of the "Isographie des Hommes Célèbres," in two 4to volumes, is now worth between £3 and £4, and the late Mr. Étienne Charavay prepared two supplements to it which are also extremely valuable. Between March, 1888, and December, 1894, the late Mr. Davey published a quarterly journal—the Archivist—which bid fair to become as indispensable to the English collector as the Amateur d'Autographes, founded in the early "eighteen-forties" and now admirably edited by M. Noël Charavay, is to his French colleague. Every true lover of autographs must deplore its untimely end, and the young collector is indeed fortunate if he can obtain a set of it. In it Dr. Scott, who was from the first its principal contributor, places quite a mine of information at the disposal of his readers. I regard the two bound volumes of the Archivist in my possession as one of the most useful books of reference obtainable in the matter of autographs. In the forty odd volumes of the Amateur d'Autographes[3] the student will discover a liberal education, as far as his special subject is concerned, ready at hand. The Charavay Sale-catalogues are of great value in the matter of arrangement and description, as well as for the facsimiles they give in abundance. One of the finest is that of the Alfred Bovet Collection, dispersed during the spring and early summer of 1884. It was prepared by M. Étienne Charavay, and fills over 800 4to pages plentifully illustrated with sketches and numerous facsimiles. A very useful book for beginners who read French is "Les Autographes en France et le goût des Autographes en France et à l'étranger" (Paris, 1865), by M. de Lescure. It contains a useful list of the numerous books on autographs published up to that date, together with the various collections of facsimiles, many of which can now be picked up on the bookstalls by the side of the Seine or the adjoining streets for a few francs. As far back as 1820 the Maison Delpech commenced the publication of their various "Iconographies," of which the "Isographie des Hommes Célèbres" was the natural successor. There are one or two German books of facsimiles, like the "Album von Autographen" (Leipzig, 1849) and the "Sammlung histor: berühmter Autographen" (Stuttgart, 1846-47). There is also a collection of five hundred facsimiles, published in 1846 by F. Bogaerts. I do not, of course, pretend to provide my readers with a complete autographic bibliography, but amongst the works I have mentioned he will find all that is necessary to set about collecting in earnest, and without fear of making many initial blunders.
Having handled and carefully examined a number of genuine autographs and having, by the study of facsimiles, familiarised himself with the handwriting of many famous men and women, the collector in embryo may begin to buy, but it must be a case of festina lente. How cautiously he should proceed he will realise when, in the next chapter, I come to consider the critical question of autograph frauds and forgeries. All respectable autograph dealers are ready to guarantee any specimen they offer for sale, and to take it back if found to be "doubtful." It is from the careful reading of the catalogues[4] issued from time to time by dealers like Mr. Bernard Quaritch, of Grafton Street, Dr. Scott, of 69, Mill Lane, West Hampstead, Mr. W. V. Daniell, of 53, Mortimer Street, Messrs. Sotheran, of 37, Piccadilly, Messrs. Maggs, of 109, Strand, Messrs. Ellis, of 29, New Bond Street, and Messrs. Pearson, of Pall Mall Court, that one obtains an insight into the current value of autographs of every description. Mr. Frank Sabin, of 172, New Bond Street, does not, as a rule, issue catalogues, but he possesses one of the most valuable stocks of autographs in existence. His Thackeray, Civil War, and Nelson collections are alone worth many thousands of pounds. While this volume was going through the press Mr. Sabin paid the record sum of £8,650 for a collection of seventeenth-century MSS. relating to America belonging to Mr. R. W. Blathwayt. In the provinces autograph catalogues are published now and then by Mr. W. Brown, of Edinburgh, and Messrs. Simmons & Waters, of Leamington Spa. All these gentlemen will readily send their catalogues on application. I have already mentioned the two excellent catalogues issued monthly in Paris. That of M. Noël Charavay, entitled Bulletin d'Autographs, has appeared ever since 1847. The Revue des Autographs of Madame Veuve Gabriel Charavay dates from 1866. It is only right to say that autograph collecting is pursued so keenly just now in France, that unless they can arrange to obtain advance copies of these catalogues, the best items in them will probably be sold before their order arrives. Catalogues are sometimes published by Herr Émile Hirsch, of 6, Carl Strasse, Munich. The American dealers will be spoken of in the chapter devoted to the subject of autograph collecting in the United States.
English autographs of exceptional interest are often obtained abroad at far lower prices than in London, and that fact makes it very necessary to look carefully through the foreign catalogues. The same remark doubtless applies to French and German autographs in England. I obtained in Germany a fine autograph letter of Charles I. for £10. It would have fetched three times that amount in a London auction-room. The same remark applies to a fine letter of the Young Pretender, which came from Paris and was priced only at 55 francs. On the other hand I obtained in London for 15s. each letters of Madame de Geoffrin and Madame du Deffand, which would have cost twice or thrice as much in Paris. In one of the latest French catalogues which reached me, an English letter was priced at 20 francs. In an English catalogue, a less lengthy letter by the same writer was offered for sale at £5. For 12 francs I once succeeded in purchasing in Paris a letter of Lord Shelbourne, covering ten pages and throwing quite new light on the relations between the French and English Courts at a certain epoch. The prices for fine autographs in London are far higher than in Paris and Germany. A Paris dealer could hardly realise the possibility of a Keats letter fetching £500 (12,500 francs), as at the Louis J. Haber sale. It was thought quite wonderful when a phenomenally early letter of Napoleon—I believe the earliest known—was sold for 5,000 francs. This figure is, I believe, the highest ever given in Paris for a single letter. In any case this unique relic of the young Napoleon only fetched about one-tenth of the price obtained for the Post Office Mauritius stamp which caused so much excitement in the philatelic world six years since.
FACSIMILE OF THE HISTORIC LETTER FROM GEORGE CRABBE TO EDMUND BURKE.
(See also p. 210.)
In the case of MSS. of every description it is necessary to read them carefully. It is only by so doing that you can hope to ascertain anything like the real value. This remark applies particularly to holograph letters. The cataloguer often omits the name of the person to whom it is addressed, or some sentence or allusion which adds materially to its value. Thus a letter of Franklin addressed to Washington, or letters by any of the French marshals written to Napoleon, would be far more valuable than ordinary letters of any of these personages. A letter signed by the Russian Emperor Paul would not be intrinsically valuable. But one addressed to Nelson was lately priced at £14. The time at which a letter is written is often an important factor in determining its price. An ordinary letter of Wellington, who wrote at least a hundred thousand letters during his public career, can be bought for 3s. 6d. A note written on the evening of June 18, 1815, not long since realised £105. Then again, letters acquire additional value when forming part of a series. I purchased a letter of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the poet Crabbe, mentioning a communication he was sending him for Dr. Johnson. Years after I secured the precious enclosure. The two together are obviously worth more than when taken singly. I possess the splendid letter of George Crabbe, appealing for help to Burke, which once belonged to Sir Theodore Martin. I failed to secure Burke's reply, which went, I believe, to the British Museum. I gave a few francs in Paris for a letter of Anne Darner's asking Madame de Staël to meet her at Miss Berry's (the friend and literary executrix of Walpole). Quite accidentally, in turning over a pile of autographs in London, I came across the reply, and a very characteristic one it was. At the present moment both letters face the account of the reunion in question in my extra-illustrated copy of "The Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry."
THE AUTOGRAPH OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
(See p. 257.)
Dr. Scott hopes I will impress upon my readers the necessity of mending autographs as little as possible. To clip or trim them is rank heresy, and gives them at once the appearance of counterfeits. Autographs must be treated with the greatest tenderness. You can best strengthen decaying paper by the careful application of diluted solution of gelatine. There are several methods of rendering faded writing again legible. According to one authority the most effective agent is very finely powdered chlorate of potash added to a decoction of galls, dabbed, not rubbed, over the MS. When dry, the surface should be sponged with lime-water. Another expert advises that the paper should be moistened, and a brush passed over the faded portion wetted with a solution of sulphide of ammonia, an infusion of galls, or a solution of ferrocyanide of potassium slightly acidulated with hydrochloric acid.[5] Personally I have found the "A.P." brand of transparent adhesive tape invaluable both in mending and hinging autographs, but worthless imitations must be avoided. It can be bought of all stationers, and with it I always use Higgins's Photographic Paste. This may possibly be a little extravagant, and an expert gives me the following recipe for a useful paste in connection with autographs:—
"Take a tablespoonful of Glenfield's Patent Starch and mix with a little cold water in an ordinary jam-pot, then fill with boiling water. When cool it will be ready for use."
The classification of autographs has given rise to endless discussion. On this subject I am at issue with Mr. Joline. Personally, I regard extra-illustration as the most effective and interesting plan of arranging and preserving autographs. Mr. Joline, on the other hand, "meditates" upon extra-illustration as only an incident or contingent possibility in autograph collection. I hope to deal with (to me) the most fascinating subject of Extra-Illustration or Grangerising in a separate volume. In an article in The Country Home I have given examples of the effective use of autographs in extra-illustration,[6] and I can conceive no form of "the gentle emotion" more enjoyable than that which one experiences when one sees an appropriate autograph placed in apposition to a fine portrait facing some text which they combine strikingly and felicitously to illustrate. In my "Chesterfield's Letters" I have a letter in English from the Sage of Ferney to the Hermit of Blackheath, together with a portrait of the same date, opposite Chesterfield's account of his meeting with and friendship for Voltaire. In an "extended" Clarke and McArthur's "Life of Nelson," in immediate contiguity to the account of one of his most daring adventures, and the honours it brought him, may be seen Nelson's original letter of thanks to George III. (as touching an epistle as he ever penned), together with a contemporary portrait in water-colours. There is no better way of preserving autographs than to house them between the leaves of well-bound and carefully tended volumes. There is no worse method than to frame them as a picture, and expose them to the fading influence of a strong light. I have seen autographs actually gummed to a glass before being framed! If an accident occurs the autograph generally shares the fate of the glass. For the orderly keeping of the autographs and MSS. which I have not utilised in the forty or fifty books I have extra-illustrated since 1900, I employ a deep folio-sized receptacle known as a Stone's "filing" cabinet, with alphabetical divisions.[7] It enables me to find any given paper at a moment's notice.
I have made the necessities of extra-illustration the mainspring, as it were, of my autograph collecting. If the young autograph collector has no specific object of this kind in view (and in the course of ten years' hard work in the vineyard of grangerising there are few kinds of autographs I have not required) I should strongly recommend him to begin with some specific line, be it soldiers or sailors, painters or poets, actors and actresses, men of letters, worthies of a particular city, county, or college, and so forth. If this course is adopted an interesting collection can be formed without incurring enormous cost, and the value of good autographs is sure to rise. It is given to few men in a generation, or even in a century, to form collections of a cosmopolitan and all-embracing character like that made by the late Mr. Alfred Morrison between the years 1865 and 1882, the catalogue of which, prepared with the utmost care by M. A. W. Thibaudeau, fills six folio and seven imperial octavo volumes, and costs £60. French collectors pay great attention to classification, and each letter is generally placed in a chemise or cover bearing some heraldic or other appropriate device. In the case of a small collection like that which Sir George White, Bart., has acquired, of letters and documents relating solely to Bristol, an alphabetical arrangement is preferable. If, however, one gathers autographs of all conceivable kinds, and "of all nations and languages," subdivisions become absolutely essential if you want to find any particular specimen without difficulty. I have already referred to the Alfred Bovet Catalogue, prepared on scientific lines by M. Étienne Charavay. In this collection the many thousand items of which it consisted were divided into—(1) Heads of Government; (2) Statesmen and Political Personages; (3) The French Revolution; (4) Warriors; (5) Men of Science and Explorers; (6) Actors and Actresses; (7) Writers; (8) Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, and Architects; (9) Huguenots; and (10) Women. There was a further subdivision according to nationalities, and these were finally arranged chronologically. The preface to the Bovet Catalogue, admirably written by M. Étienne Charavay, has been published separately under the attractive title of "The Science of Autographs." It deserves to be translated and published in English, for no more thoughtful essay on the value of historical letters and the cult of the autograph has ever appeared. It is now time to consider the application of the legal maxim of caveat emptor to the acquisition of MSS. of every description. The presence of a forgery will often discredit an otherwise interesting and valuable collection. Not long ago I was shown an album of autographs which represented the gleanings of two or three generations of a highly respectable county family. The moment I opened it I recognised my old friend the Byron-Galignani facsimile, which is offered to dealers as a rare specimen at least once a week. The owner, who had paid several pounds for it, declared he could vouch for its genuineness beyond the shadow of a doubt! He never quite forgave my taking down the Paris edition of Byron's poems to convince him of his error.