Littell's Living Age/Volume 146/Issue 1893/Aldines and Elzevirs

Aldines and Elzevirs

One of the earliest symptoms of bibliomania is a passion for Aldines and Elzevirs. The young patient generally labors under the delusion that all books from the great Venice and Leyden presses are of equal value. Novels encourage this delusion; they always represent learned professors as "rich in Aldines and Elzevirs;" and we recently read a romance in which one of the characters possessed an Elzevir Theocritus. This treasure would indeed have been of great price, the black tulip or blue rose of bibliography, for an Elzevir Theocritus is unknown to Brunet, to Pieters, and to M. Willems, the last writer on the great Dutch publishers. Misled by novels, then, and by vague tradition, the bibliophile, in the first stages of the complaint, haunts bookstalls, and thinks himself wonderfully fortunate. Elzevirs more or less grubby, and with pages more or less cut to the quick, are to be found in hundreds, and at very moderate prices. The beginner buys and buys, thinks himself a perfect "snuffy Davy" for luck, and never guesses that he is accumulating trash, and laying in stores of lively book-worms which will devour his treasures. He knows nothing, as yet, of right editions. An Elzevir Cæsar is an Elzevir Cæsar to him. Now the genuine Cæsar of 1635, is, in M. Willems's opinion, the gem of all the duodecimo collections. By the way, even the neophyte is generally knowing enough to collect none but duodecimo Elzevirs, though the larger formats, like the Tacitus with variorum notes, the Apollonius Rhodius, and dozens more; are quite as beautiful as, and infinitely more legible than the "small, rare volumes dark with tarnished gold." To return to the Cæsar of 1635. With the Pliny of the same date, the Virgil of 1636 (of which Charles Nodier could never procure a satisfactory copy), and the undated "Imitation," the Cæsar is the pride of the Elzevir collections. The type, the ornaments, the exquisite printing, the paper, and even the correctness of the text, leave nothing to be desired. But there are two other editions, also dated 1635, in which pages 149, 335, and 475 are correctly printed, whereas in the true edition they are marked 153, 345, and 375. These two editions are worth little, especially the second of them, while the right Cæsar, with the wrong pages, costs some twenty pounds at auctions. This is only one example of the niceties of the taste for Elzevirs. There can scarcely be a prettier little book than "the pocket edition of Rabelais" of 1675. This edition is a reimpression, line for line, of that of 1663, yet it has scarcely any value, while the earlier book costs sums quite out of the reach of the modest beginner. Every one of these editions seems incorrect to modern scholarship; but the first was eagerly welcomed by Guy Patin when it was new, and cost "four livres, ten sous." The fact is that the value of Elzevirs depends partly on fashions (some worthless books bring hundreds of pounds), partly on condition, breadth of margin, and the presence or absence of certain marks which can only be learned at some expense of time, money, and research. Of forged or false Elzevirs more than one hundred and fifty are known to experts. Thus the beginner is likely to be puffed up with pride when he has secured "Les Mémoires de Philippe de Commines, A Leyde, chez les Elzeviers, 1649;" especially if his prize prove a little taller and wider than the other copies with which he compares it. Examples, as the manuals will tell him, are very dear. M. de Montesson's copy cost about 50l., and 20l'. is a not uncommon price. Alas! the right edition is of 1648; and that of 1649, in spite of the title-page and the figure of the old hermit, is a forgery, printed on larger paper, and probably published at Rouen. Let the Scotch Presbyterian also beware of spurious imitations. Who that has learned the "Shorter Catechism" in his youth, who that has blundered over "justification, sanctification, and adoption" would not willingly possess an Elzevir edition of his old enemy? Such a book seems to exist, "The Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisme, etc., Amsterdam, printed by Luice Elsever, 1649." Unluckily, the book, which was exhibited at South Kensington in 1877 with the Caxton collection, is a forgery. The late Mr. Laing sent a facsimile of the title-page to M. Willems, who at once saw that the types were English in character, and utterly unlike anything ever used by the Elzevirs. Again, there is not in the book a single fleuron or other ornament, such as the Elzevirs always used, and, lastly, the "Shorter Catechism" is not mentioned in any of the Elzevirs' own catalogues of their publications. The object of the forgery remains a mystery. To close this chapter of forgeries, it may be mentioned that false Elzevirs bear dates as late as 1770, while the last of the great and accomplished printers of the family died in 1680, and the last who professed a humbler sort of art, in 1712.

The hunter after Aldines is likely to fall into the same snares as the inexperienced lover of Elzevirs. Only certain editions are of value, and the worth of these depends greatly on their condition and even on their binding. There is a tendency, a natural tendency as we think, to prefer the books published by the great founder of the Aldine house between 1494 and 1514. Aldines do not retain their high place in the estimation of collectors so firmly as the books of the Elzevirs. The latter published early and beautiful editions of the contemporary French classics, while the Aldines chiefly printed Latin and Greek books, and works of erudition. Neither classics nor the superseded philology of the sixteenth century are now so much valued as they once were. The classics are, we say it with pain, almost a drug in the market. New frivolities have usurped their place. People look for original editions of French and English poets, or for early woodcuts, or for the oddities of Restif de la Brétonne, or for the vignettes of Cochin, and Eisen, and the other French "little masters." The Greek and Latin classics are almost as much neglected as works of heresy, like those of Bruno and Vanini, and the little tome on the "pre-Adamites," which the Elzevirs published in an incautious moment. We can "see " these heresies now, as the Americans say, and "go a thousand dollars more," in the same direction. New editions of the classics, too, have made all but the masterpieces of Aldus, Musurus of Crete, Zacharias Calliergus, and other great scholars, seem superfluous. And in the search for Aldines, as of Elzevirs, the bibliophile must beware of the piratical counterfeits printed at Lyons. Aldus himself complained bitterly of the Lyons pirates. "The paper of these books is second-rate, and even smells badly." We can testify, from a Lyons counterfeit of the Aldine Catullus of 1502, which lies before us, that the paper is second-rate. The evil odor, however, has disappeared in the course of nearly four hundred years. Another way of detecting forgeries is to note whether the consonants are attached to the vowels, as in writing, or whether they stand apart. In the former case the book is probably a genuine Aldine, in the latter it is a Lyons forgery. There are various other distinguishing marks; but we have probably said enough to teach the young bibliophile that all old books printed in italics are not Aldines, and even that many apparently authentic Aldines are forgeries almost worthless.

To take an intelligent interest in the productions of the two famous houses, the Venetian and the Dutch, one ought to have some notion of the characters and purgoses of Aldus, and of the Elzevirs. A catalogue of a private collection, just published by Mr. Toovey, may serve as a text for a few remarks on the Manutii. The collection "owes its existence to a well-known distinguished collector, who, true to the motto of the family, for half a century lost no opportunity of selecting under the most favorable circumstances the choicest copies of the several works as they appeared at the dispersion of the libraries formed by Renouard, Sir Mark Sykes, Heber," and many others. We do not know what family rejoices in the admirable motto which bids its scions lose no opportunity of collecting Aldines. But the amateur whose catalogue is in our hands had books in the original bindings of Aldus, De Thou, D'Hoym, and the other great old fanciers. It is scarcely necessary to say that a binding of De Thou's, or D'Hoym's, or Grolier's (none of whom, we must once more say, to correct a popular error, were bookbinders), adds indefinitely to the market price of a volume. Opening Mr Toovey's catalogue at random, we light on the "Anthologia Græca" of 1503. Aldus followed here the text of Alopa's Florentine edition of 1494, but added some epigrams previously unpublished. M. Firmin Didot possessed an autograph letter in which Scipio Carteromachos congratulated Aldus on this casket of jewels, "containing the flower and choice of the most gracious poesy." A more interesting item is the Aristophanes of 1498, containing but nine plays, all that then had been discovered. Aldus dedicated his book with enthusiasm to Daniel Clary, then Greek professor "in opulent Ragusa." In every line of Aldus's letter there burns that noble love of classic literature which was the sole motive of his unwearying industry. Musurus of Crete adds a letter in which he bids "Philhellenes" pay Aldus due honor. Aldus, indeed, combined the rare characters of an enthusiastic grammarian and a disinterested publisher. His editions, even now, are reckoned with manuscripts among the critical apparatus of scholars.

The Elzevirs were neither nobly born (as were the Manutii if they were descended from the Mannucci of Florence) nor of a noble temper. The family seems to have had no connection with Spain, as has sometimes been asserted. Louis Elzevir, the founder of the family, was a bookbinder by trade. About the end of 1580 he settled in Leyden, and obtained leave to build a shop in the grounds of the university. His central position gave him great advantages; he started as a bookseller, and published his first volume in 1583. By an interesting coincidence the latest Aldine in Mr. Toovey's catalogue is dated 1583, and thus the Elzevir obscurely arose just when the house of Aldus was declining. The Elzevirs made their great stroke for fame and fortune, when they began to publish cheap and neat editions of the classics in duodecimo. Large formats, the quarto and folio, went out of fashion. The Elzevirs had anticipated the cheap and handy volumes which M. Charpentier introduced to France, and from which Mr. Matthew Arnold hopes for the regeneration of British literature and the end of trouble about copyright. The duodecimos first came out in 1629, and were welcomed by the learned. But many shortsighted students, with whom most modern readers will sympathize, condemned the minute type, which demands a weary service from the eyes. Perhaps the Elzevir types were the beginning of German shortsightedness. De Put wrote to Heinsius, that the printers "cared for nothing but money," and the father of Madame Dacier was of much the same opinion. Posterity has judged the Elzevirs more leniently. But it is unhappily beyond doubt that Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir were even more mean and cunning than the booksellers whom Drayton spurned with poetic contempt. They were as "crafty" as Scott's Constable. Heinsius, too, the scholar who supplied what Aldus had and the Elzevirs lacked, acquaintance with letters, was an ungenerous and malicious man. Thus the Dutch printers have none of the charms which his untiring enthusiasm lends to the memory of Aldus Manutius. They printed, pilfered, pirated, though certain of their victims took the piracy for a compliment: —

Ecquidnam video? O Dei Deæque

Nostros scilicet Elzevirianis

Excusos video typis libellos.

O typos nitidos et elegantes!

So sung Ménage when Daniel Elzevir printed his poems. The French volumes of the Elzevir were as convenient as the Tauchnitz editions of English novels. The chief printer of these pretty books was Daniel, at Leyden from 1652 to 1655, at Amsterdam from 1655 to 1680. His character in part redeemed that of the crafty Abraham and the dodgy Bonaventure. On his death the better part of the business ended; but an Abraham, great-great-grandson of the founder of the house, lived and printed horribly at Leyden till 1712. His principal business was the publishing of college theses, and even these he turned out most execrably. The Elzevir types long survived the last printers of the family, but were destroyed by a publisher who was infatuated about the work of a German founder. Sic transit gloria.