A   945,490






I;


I






z
) I,. t,~,;




-2k;J'/ fr,f/(J  //'- 7/


92.7
I~0rl /




7'?
78'7~.t 7
stI




LUll


MEE












RECOLLECTIONS OF
MR JAMES LENOX OF NEW YORK
AND THE FORMATION OF
HIS LIBRARY




A nation's Books are her vouchers; her
Libraries are her muniments. H. S.




OF




o-/ kv-lnt mw.'



RECOLLECTIONS OF
MR JAMES LENOX
OF NEW YORK
AND THE FORMATION
OF HIS LIBRARY
By HENRY STEVENS of Vermont
Bibliographer and Lover of Books Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries of Old England and Corresponding
Member of the American Antiquarian Society of New England of the
Massachusetts Historical Society and of the New England Genealo
gical Society Life Member of the British Association for the Advance
ment of Science Fellow of the British Archaeological Association
and the Zoological Society of London Black Balled Athenaeum
Club of London also Patriarch of Skull & Bones of Yale
and Member of the Historical Societies of Vermont
New York Wisconsin Maryland &c &c BA
and MA of Yale College as well as
Citizen of Noviomagus,,
et cetera;    *
LONDON
HENRY STEVENS & SON 115 ST MARTIN'S LANE
Over against the Church of St Martin in the Fields
MDCCCLXXXVI




TO THE READER
WHO faulteth not, liueth not; who mendeth
faults is commended: The Printer hath faulted
a little: it may be the author oversighted more.
Thy paine (Reader) is the least; then erre not
thou most by misconstruing or sharpe censuring;
least thou be more vncharitable, then either of
them hath been heedlesse: God amend and guide
vs all.-Robartes on Tythes 4~ Camb, 1613.
COPYRIGHT I886 BY HENRY N. STEVENS




FOR AULD LANG SYNE
THESE pages are inscribed with pleasant Recolleftions of more than fortyfive years to my old and valued friend
DOCTOR GEORGE H. MOORE
SUPERINTENDENT OF THE LENOX LIBRARY.
PETERFORCE that Eminent Antiquarian of
the American Archives brought us together in I840, and the influence of kindred
tastes and pursuits soon wrought an open
friendship that has stood the test of years.
In the whirligig of time our orbits have
touched but occasionally, yet always with
interest, until now he is in charge of many
thousands of the rare books that passed
through my hands as told in this volume.
LONG MAY HE HAVE CHARGE OF THEM.




Libraries are an index of a nation's, as well as an
individual's, wealth, taste, and character. H. S.




l j*e " '/:, t }*I   o
EXPLANATORY.
N the spring of 1883,
while the Council in
London ofthe Library
Association  of  the
United Kingdom were
discussing their programme for their
Annual Meeting at Liverpool to be
held in the fall, I in an unguarded
moment told 'the boys,' that they
might enter me for a Paper of Recolledions of Mr James Lenox or
Sir Antonio Panizzi. Our nimble
Secretary made a note of it, and accordingly in the first draftThe foregoing fragment and the Dedication to Dr George H. Moore, were the
last lines my father wrote, only a day or two
before his lamented decease. The effort of
writing




viii       EXPLANAT OR Y
writing was too much for his failing strength,
although he retained his mental faculties to
the end.  The night before his death,
he was talking sanguinely of work he proposed to complete in the spring, when he
hoped to be better, and he discussed and
finally approved of the specimen sheet of
this little volume, in the preparation of
which he had taken the greatest interest
during his illness.
The substance of the following pages
formed the subje& of a Paper he read with
much success at the Liverpool Meeting of
the Library Association in September i883.
It was afterwards written out and printed
in the Transadfions of the Association for
that year. In response to numerous suggestions of his friends he had designed to
rewrite the Paper on a broader or more
general basis with a title ' Forty Years'
Reminiscences of a veteran Bibliographer,'
or something to that effed. Finding his
failing health would not permit him to
work up so extensive a subjed he then proposed to enlarge this Lenox Paper, and I
found in his desk a quantity of memoranda
for that purpose. The effort however proving too much for his strength, he consented
to let me publish the Paper with only a slight
revision, and he intended to explain in the
preface that he hoped later on to be well
enough to amplify the work in a second
edition.                          The




EXPLANA TORY              ix
The Portraits of Mr Lenox and the
later one of himself were in the engraver's
hands when a day or two before his death
he sent for a miniature painted about I847,
which stood in another room, and said ' that
portrait should go opposite the chapter on
the young man from Vermont.' In deference
to that expression of his wish, I have had
the earlier portrait engraved as well.
It may not be out of place to mention
here that my father has left several Essays on
important historical and geographical subjects
which I shall hope to publish in course of
time.
HENRY N. STEVENS


b




Public Libraries are intellectual lighthouses for the
information and guidance of the people. H. S.




I








RECOLLECTIONS
OF MR JAMES LENOX OF
NEW YORK AND THE
FORMATION OF HIS
LIBRARY
I
Brief Biographical Sketch by way of
Introduaion
XR JAMES LENOX
of New York, the
founder of the LENOX
LIBRARY in that city,
was born in i 80o and
died in i 8 80. A general biography
is not aimed at, but only such personal
recolleftions and memoranda respe&ing him as happen to be in my own
private-keeping. It is not within my
plan to pry into the Lenox preserves,
B       especially




2     RECOLLECTIONS OF
especially as it is understood that he
requested on his death-bed that the
private particulars of his life might
not be publicly canvassed. This is
striftly in accordance with the modest
and retiring chara&ter of Mr Lenox,
and is fully appreciated. Providence
however set the Lenox beacon on a
hill, and it is too much to expea that
death should not have partially removed the bushel that so long obscured it.
For more than a quarter of a century ( 845-1I87 ) our intercourseand
confidential relations as principal and
agent, while he was forming his most
valuable library of rare and costly
books, were of the closest charaCter,
as evidenced by the piles of letters,
lists and invoices that passed between
us, all still carefully preserved.
Mr Lenox was a man of few
words and few intimate friends, but
of varied information, much studious
reading, extensive correspondence
and many books. He was the only
son




MR JAMES LENOX          3
son of Robert Lenox, a Scotch merchant who emigrated to New York
in 17 84, and achieved great wealth
during an honourable and long life.
James was educated chiefly at Princeton and became a Presbyterian of the
stritest se&t. He nominally joined
his father in business at about the age
of twenty-eight asaforeignor importing merchant. The firm was Messrs
Robert Lenox& Son at 5 9 Broadway,
and was so styled from 1829 to 1840,
when itwas changedto'JamesLenox,
Merchant' at the same address, and
so continued till about i 845. But
with his ample fortune and education, Mr James Lenox's mind was
rather on music, gems, engravings,
paintings, fine arts and literature,
than on merchandize. He was most
methodical, and had acquired excellent business habits.
On the death of his father in
1 840, he inherited almost the whole
of the vast Lenox property, including a large farm of some 300
acres




4     RECOLLECTIONS OF
acres in the upper part of the City
of New York, which by the year
I 8 6 5 became surrounded by the
rapidly growing city, and in consequence rose to a value of millions.
About this time he sold off building lots to the amount of about
$3,oooooo, reserving some of the
largest and best lots for an extensive
public hospital, public library and
other public enterprises.
Thus we see Mr James Lenox was
not only born with a fortune, but
Fortune made him her own through
life. He was a pattern of industry,
method, and good management. He
not only himself worked ten hours aday, but he managed to make his
property work for him twenty-four
hours daily, accumulating by good
investments like rolling snow-balls.
He could therefore well afford to do
as he liked; and it is well known that
he liked to do every thing in his own
way, without outside influence, interference or di~tation.
Mr




MR JAMES LENOX         5
Mr Lenox was ever most generous
and charitable, but like my old
friend the late Mr George Peabody,
the founder of sundry public libraries,
he manifested a dislike of being indebted to strangers or neighbours
for hints as to his public or private
duties; nor would he tolerate any
interference in his own charitable
impulses. He staked out his own
course, hoed his own row, paddled
his own canoe and revelled silently
in his own generous suggestions,
which began literally at home in his
own bosom.
He paid his taxes liberally, bore
his share of the public burdens,
pastured figuratively the widow's
cow, helped the needy, but avoided
all public offices and politics. Perhaps he carried some of these notions
a little too far to be reckoned a good
citizen. Were many others to do the
same the public weal might suffer;
but that is a circumstance hardly to
be counted on in New York, where
the




6     RECOLLECTIONS OF
the general tendency is ratherthe other
way: too many citizens giving their
time and attention to public business,
sometimes even to the negledt of their
own.
With all this apparent selfishness,
Mr Lenox was always studying the
welfare of the public, and that of
posterity rather than his own. Yet
with all his set ways he was ever
tolerant in granting to others the
same privileges and pleasures of the
mind-your-own-business principles
and habits which he uniformly assumed and praftised for himself.
He thought that more young men
prospered by minding their own
business than by politics or noisy
professions. Hence by some he was
thought proud, aristocratic, distant
and haughty, but those who entertained or expressed such opinions of
him manifestly did not know him.
To me, who was in constant communication with him for more than
a quarter of a century prior to the
founding




MR JAMES LENOX         7
founding by charter of the LENOX
LIBRARY, he always appeared diffident (almostbashful),simple-hearted,
generous, kind, very pious, very retiring and very close-mouthed to outsiders, but as communicative as a
child to his intimates; and especially
to those in sympathy with his projedts
and pursuits. With all his amiable
qualities none knew his duties better,
and knowing them, none dared maintain themmore firmly and consistently
than he.
Mr Lenox shunned notoriety with
the same ardour that others sought
it; but when it overtook him, as it
frequently did, in spite of his reserve,
or when it was blown upon him by
the breath of the people, he bore it
with Christian fortitude and silence,
even avoiding to read the newspapers that heralded his praises, knowing that in most cases the writers
communicated only fragments of the
truth, often exaggerated and distorted.
His




8     RECOLLECTIONS OF
His love of exadness, or exa&t
conformity to truth, was sometimes
carried into inconvenient trifles. He
tolerated no interviewers or curiosity
hunters, and his own door was seldom opened to visitors except by
appointment. He was himself not
easily accessible except for good
cause, but the treasures of his library,
however precious, were generally
with great promptitude and courtesy
submitted to the use of scholars on
due and satisfa&tory application, but
seldom at his own house; nor was
he (with rare exceptions) willing to
lend his rare books or let them go
out of his possession. His frequent
pradtice was to deposit his rarities,
when asked for, in the hands of the
librarian of the Astor Library, or
some similar place of safety, and
then by note inform the applicant
that the use of the particular book
required was at his service there.
He was always extremely nervous
and fidgety about the safety of his
treasures




MR JAMES LENOX         9
treasures when out of his own keeping, and uniformly declined applications to 'see his library.' He even
refused, among a good many others
we know of, Mr Prescott the historian, but at the same time politely
informed that distinguished writer
that any particular book or manuscript he possessed which Mr Prescott
might name should be forwarded for
his use if possible. The words ' if
possible' often used by Mr Lenox
in his replies were sometimes incomprehensible, and gave offence to
many whose curiosity to see the
library overbalanced the desire of
access to particular books.  The
truth was that from about 845 to
I869 Mr Lenox was adively colledting his library so rapidly, and
doing all the work himself, that he
had no time to catalogue or arrange
his accessions, except a few of the
smaller and tidier nuggets which he
could put away in the few bookcases in his gallery of art which was
c           also




10    RECOLLECTIONS OF
also being filled at the same time
with paintings and sculpture. The
great bulk of his book colledtions
was piled away in the numerous
spare rooms of his large house, till
they were filled to the ceiling from
the further end back to the door,
which was then locked and the room
for the present done with. The
accessions after examination and
careful collation, approval and payment, were entered or ticked off in
interleaved catalogues of TernauxCompans, Rich, Ebert, Hain, Lea
Wilson, Offor and others, or in small
and special memorandum books,
with sufficient clearness for his own
use but unintelligible to outsiders.
The books were then piled away, or
corded up like wood. ' If possible '
therefore was a term which Mr Lenox
might fairly use, but was not called
upon to explain. Indeed I have
heard him say that he had often
bought duplicates for immediate use
or to lend, rather than grope for the
copies




MR JAMES LENOX         1
copies he knew to be in the stacks
in some of his store-rooms or chambers, notably 'Stirling's Artists of
Spain,' a high-priced book. Though
most tidy and methodical himself he
could not permit others to witness
this apparent disorder.
One rainy morning in New York,
when Mr Lenox and I were discussing 'Nuggets' and telling anecdotes, chiefly of his father and himself, I ventured to ask him if the
story I had often heard of his refusing
Mr Prescott permission to see his
library was true. He replied that
it was painfully true. ' I had acquired the Munioz Manuscripts from
Mr Rich and the Lord Steuart de
Rothesay Brazilian papers, with many
valuable Spanish and Portuguese
books from you, and it seemed to be
the fashion of every stranger that
came to New York to see the Lenox
Library. It was very annoying and
I thought that a good opportunity
to declare myself.'  He therefore
gave




1z    R4jCOLLECTIONS OF
gave the inquisitive public to understand through Mr Prescott that
though he was forming a library it
would not be accessible, except on
special occasions, till formed. He
relaxed his wholesome rules once or
twice, particularly in the case of Mr
'Ander Schiffahrt,' but the treatment
he received from that distinguished
Frenchman was no encouragement
to continue to submit to this inconvenience.
As Mr Lenox advanced in years
and took upon his shoulders new responsibilities, he felt more and more
that his time, his money, and his
brains were all his own, in a lower
but not a higher sense, they being
the three talents specially entrusted
to him by a bountiful Providence for
use and due increase. So with a
conscience as round as his heart, and
with a zeal commensurate with his
diligence and his knowledge, he
plodded on till he had finished all
the work he had begun. Like Noah
Webster




MR JAMES LENOX        13
Webster he was called away in the
ripeness of old age just when he had
done his life's work, leaving nothing
to be finished. A purer, cleaner, and
more finished life it is hardly possible to conceive.
Such was JAMES LENOX of New
York, who died on the 17th of February i 8 8o, at the age of eighty,
the bibliographer, the colleftor, the
founder of one of the most valuable
public libraries in the New World,
the philanthropist, the builder of
churches, the establisher of a large
public hospital, the giver to New
York of a Home for Aged Women,
the dispenser of untold silent charity,
and the benefador of his native city
and his honoured country. With all
this outcome of a quiet and unostentatious life Mr Lenox was rarely
seen of men, and few there be who
can from experience divulge the untold particulars of any of his achievements; especially as to how, when
and where he accumulated the treasures




14     MR JAMES LENOX
sures of the extraordinary library he
bequeathed to the public. He was
himself content to labour and to wait
under the wide-spreading shadow of
oblivion, his many virtues bringing
to him their own sufficient reward.
This was the man with whom I
had the good fortune to exchange
commodities for a continued period
of twenty-five years. He gave me
his money and his friendship, and I
sought the world over to supply him
with books and manuscripts. If you
will overlook the apparent egotism
I will now briefly relate how our
good genii brought it all about without any fault on the part of either
of us. It was to be, and so I
suppose it was. I therefore
tell the story as
history.


II




a




0
-?t 634






II
Ayoung man from Vermont prospefleth in Europe
N  July 1845, a young
man from Vermont,
at the age of twentysix, I found myself
in London, a self-appointed missionary, on an antiquarian
and historical book-hunting expedition, at my own expense and on
my own responsibility, with a few
Yankee notions in head and an
ample fortune of nearly forty sovereigns in pocket. I had contrived
by the light of pine knots and dips
to pick up some education among
the Green Mountains, with a little
Latin and less Greek; had passed
the




x6    RECOLLECTIONS OF
the year 1839 in Middlebury College; 1840 at Washington as a wellpaid clerk in the Treasury Department and Senate; I84I-43 in Yale
College, where a B.A. degree was
won; 1844 in Harvard Law School
under Story; all the while dabbling
in books and manuscripts by way
of keeping the pot boiling. During
vacations and holidays I had for
five years scouted through the New
England and Middle States prospeting in out-of-the-way places for
historical nuggets, mousing through
public and private libraries and old
homestead garrets, chiefly on behalf
of Peter Force and his American
Archives. From Maine to Virginia
many a disused churn, old cradle,
dilapidated hencoop, and empty flour
barrel had yielded rich harvests of
old papers, musty books and sallow
pamphlets. These were bought or
borrowed and skimmed for Col
Force, while many collectors and
librarians enjoyed some pickings. In
this




MR 7AMES LENAOX        17
this way the acquaintance of many of
the chief authors and book lovers of
the country was made; and sufficient
experience it was thought had been acquiredtotrythehappierhunting-fields
of the Old World, its libraries, its archives, its bookstalls and its old homesteads. It was a wild-goose chase, but
as the goose was caught some details
may be worth repeating. Those were
indeed happy days, when on a July
morning one might run down a hundred brace of rare old books on
America in London at as many shillings a volume as must now be paid
pounds. The shops of Rich, Rodd,
Thorpe, Pickering and others were
looked through the firstfortnight,and
books to the amount of more than
i,o000 turned down'and reportedtoQ
American clients. They were scrambled for in Boston and New York like
hot buck-wheat cakes at a College
breakfast. It was hardly possible to
sweep them together fast enough.
The books were sorted, invoiced,
D         packed




18    RECOLLECTIONS OF
packed and shipped at Mr Rich's or
Mr G. P. Putnam's, and paid for by
drafts attached to the bills of lading.
One day in the early autumn of
1845, friend Putnam told me of his
executing some orders for a Mr James
Lenox of New York, who had recently begun collecting old Bibles,
chiefly from Thorpe's catalogues, and
said he had bought a few lots in April
before from Bright's sale, among them
notably a fine copy of Hakluyt, with
the rare Mollyneux map, for 25 OS.
He suggested my offering Mr Lenox
some of the nuggetsof American history I was colle&ting. An invoice of
about C200 was therefore made by
me to Messrs Wiley and Putnam, to
which they added a commission of 10
per cent and sent the original dire&
to Mr Lenox ' on approval.' By return of post every book was ordered
except 'Hakluyt's Divers Voyages,'
1582, 4~, at ten guineas, worth ~200
now. Mr. Lenox wrote that this was
not required, as he already possessed
it.




MR JAMES LENOX        19
it. This was his first great mistake in
book collefting, which he mourned
for many a day. Though he wrote by
the next fortnightly post to re-order
the book, it had been sold and he was
years in running down another copy.
The correspondence through Putnam arising out of this blunder led up
to other matters. More invoices 'on
approval' were sent in the form of
'Messrs Wiley and Putnam, bought
of Henry Stevens,' always through
Mr Putnam to Mr Lenox, and he
ordered almost all lots not duplicate,
so that by the end of the year many
hundreds of pounds worth had been
sent to him, and so a new colleftor of
Americana was launched.
At length, at the beginning of
1846, came a complimentary note
from Mr Lenox addressed to me,
stating how much pleased he was with
these books, and that he was disposed
to go on in this new line of collecding;
as well as that of Bibles, and inquired
if I could not as well ship the books
direct




20    RECOLLECTIONS OF
dire& to him without the intervention
of Mr Putnam, and so save the io
per cent commission. This was the
ostensible reason for the change, but
he afterwards told me that a stronger
reason for the change with him was
not so much the commission, as the
fa&t that the books imported through
a large establishment were seen and
commented upon by the book fancying gossips of New York, ' who knew
so much about his business as no man
knew more.' The letter was at once
handed over to Mr Putnam with a
request to read and answer it, at the
same time enclosing my acknowledgment and another invoice. Mr Putnam was of course desirous of retaining so valued a correspondent, explained the situation, and setting forth
the advantages of his London and
New York agency, solicited a continuance of the triangular arrangement.
During this correspondence I of
course remained loyal to friend Putnam




MR JAMES LENOX        21
nam, and continued to send reports
and bibliographical notes through
him, until finally Mr Lenox, finding
that there was an unpleasant leakage
in New York, wrote me again and dire&t, intimating his dissatisfaction at
the roundabout and expensive mode
of proceeding, and declared that he
did not at all consider himself tied to
Messrs Wiley and Putnam's or any
other house as his exclusive London
agents; that if I was inclined to continue to correspond with him dire&l
and confidentially, consigning my
shipments to himself, I might do so,
otherwise the correspondence must
cease. As a matter of course Mr
Lenox had his own way, as it was his
nature to and he could afford to have.
For a time this created a shade of coolness between Mr Putnam and myself, but the extent and cordiality of
our other relations soon extinguished
it. Besides, it was a revelation of a
new kind of business with him of
which he knew little or nothing.
Thenceforward




22    RECOLLECTIONS OF
Thenceforward for nearly a quar.
ter of a century all Europe was ransacked for bibliographical rarities for
Mr Lenox, who indulged in the pleasing satisfadtion of being his own cons
fidential importer without feeling
called upon to let his intelligent neighbours know how deeply he was putting his hands into his own pockets,
orwhat particular books he was bringing together for the use of their and
his own posterity. Our correspondence with lists, invoices and bibliographical notes was frequent and constant, indeed something passing between us by almost every steamer for
full fifteen years, until the commencementofthe Civil War,when there was
a partial suspension of book-hunting
on his part for a time.
In thus becoming a correspondent
ofMr Lenox it did notsquarewithmy
notions of fairness to abate a jot of
loyalty to Mr John Carter Brown and
others who had either given me their
orders, or what was more common,
had




MR JAMES LENOX        23
had indicated in a general way their
lines of colle&ting and desire to participate in the advantages of my opportunities and proclivities. The consequence wasthatMrLenoxatfirst used
to complain that he was compelled to
submit to a second choice. But he
soon learned to appreciate and honour
the motives of a foreign agent on
whose a&tions he could count and rely.
The truth was that the larger part of
the books, maps, prints and manuscripts colle6ted and shipped by me
were either 'reported' or sent out 'on
approval,' passing round from one
client to another till exhausted or returned. Mr Carter Brown for some
years in this way enjoyed thefirst pick,
with which he was contented, seldom
ordering a book except from a report
or au&tion catalogue. This pre-emption of desiderata was considered of
much consequence, but by degrees
Mr Lenox got round this difficulty of
secondary choice, partially by studying out the bibliography of the subje&s




24     RECOLLECTIONS OF
je6ts most interesting to himself, and
ordering in advance what he required.
But this could not always be done,
because new rarities were constantly
turning up that had not been recorded
by previous bibliographers. This circumstance added vastly to the interest
and importance of my historical and
bibliographical mission to the Old
World. These remarks, by the way,
apply mainly to the materials of the
early history and literature of the
New World. Other departments
further on.
From my knowledge of the general
run of the rapidly accumulating colleftions of Mr Brown, Mr Lenox, and
several other less hungry American
colleftors, I always knew almost to a
certainty where to place any nugget'
that turned up. The world outside of
book-hunting may smile at this eagerness for the first choice, but such a
smile of pity will most likely vanish
away into complaisance on becoming
acquainted with the fa&t that after
forty




MR JAMES- LENOX        25
forty years' experience in sighting and.
chasing book-rarities, I found that a
very large number of the choicest historical and bibliographical nuggets
relating to the 'Age of Discovery,'
with the exploration and development
of the New World, occurred but once
in my time, in the market for sale.
Happy he who became the winner in such a chase!
t ",'.'


E


Iii




III
The ' Mazarine' Bible
S a book collector Mr
Lenox was original
and peculiar, but nothing could exceed his
promptitude, pun&uality, energy, exactness, frankness,. truthfulness, simplicity and courtesy.
He was painfully just and even exafting in having everything in which he
participated done in his own way, and
when he found himself mistaken, as he
not unfrequently did, he always owned
up like a man. He used to complain
of the hard work of book collecting,
and sometimes prayed me not to send
him too many books at a time, because it kept him up nights collating,
examining,




MR JAMES LENOX:7
examining, passing and entering, or
ticking them off in his various lists.
His interest in every new consignment
was intense, and there was no rest
until he had cleared his office of every
book and remitted a draft in payment.
At first he was rather careless about
the condition of the copies and cared
very little for fine bindings, but by
degrees he became acutely quick as to
the completeness and purity of his
books, until the best bindings that
Bedford and Pratt could turn out were
not too good or too dear for him.
The little plain morocco quartos of
Hayday at eight shillings in i846
grew into works of art eight or ten
years later at twenty to forty shillings
each. He was an ingrain bibliographer, but his early experience in
colledting was not always according
to knowledge. He had an eye like
a hawk for rare books when he saw
them, but was timid in ordering from
mere titles in catalogues or reports.
It soon therefore grew into a custom




28     RECOLLECTIONS OF
torn between us that no bargain was
complete until he had seen and accepted the book,except when ordered
from au&ion or booksellers' catalogues. This was sometimes rather
hard on me, because by far the greater
proportion of the many books sent
him in this way on approval had to
be colle&ed from all parts of Europe,
collated, completed if necessary,
bound, invoiced and shipped to New
York, to await his decision and remittance, consuming in many instances
half a year. The disappointments
were sometimes as amusing as vexatious, but generally were amicably
settled by correspondence. For instance, in early times he ordered from
a proof sheet of a Berlin catalogue a
traft in German, priced at i i 5 francs.
On receiving it with the price correted to i 5 francs he returned it as
' notwanted,' because he had orderedit
under the impression that it was a'rare
book,' as the former price indicated.
Again, when his tastes had grown
into




MR JAMES LENOX.        29
into the mysteries of uncut leaves, he
returned a very rare early New England traft, expensively bound, because
it did not answer the description of
'uncut' in the invoice, for the leaves
'had manifestly been cut open and
read.' When it was explained to him
that in England the term 'uncut' signified only that the edges were not
trimmed, he shelved the rarity with
the remark that he 'learned something
everyday.' Ontheother handhekept
a great Spanish rarity with margins
cut close, because a German youth
who desired to praftice writing English to me had described it as ' perfedt
although very closely circumcised.'
Our correspondence and intercourse
were full of innocent surprises of this
sort, but perhaps showing too much
frankness and simplicity to be repeated in print.
Mr James Lenox was always liberal and even willing if necessary to pay
a high price for a very rare book, provided he was sure the transaftion was
open




30    RECOLLECTIONS OF
open and perfe&tly fair, buthe was ever
suspicious of paying more than the
market value. A curious case occurred in i 847, some eighteen months
after I had begun supplying him with
Americana and occasionally with
other rare books. I had announced
to him among other bibliographical
gossip that a fine and perfedt copy of
the forty-twoline LatinBibleofi450 -1455, usually but unjustly called the
' Mazarine' Bible, was soon coming
on for sale by audion at Sotheby's,
and, though a copy had been sold as
high as i go, suggested that he should
go in for it at that or even a higher
price if necessary. I gave a careful
collation and description of the two
volumes, and stated that though both
Mr Putnam and I would probably be
absent in Paris at the time of the sale,
his order would be attended to by the
house of Messrs Wiley and Putnam,
to whom he was requested to address
his orders and instrudtions. His order came during our absence, with a
simple




MR JAMES LENOX         31
simple request to the manager to buy
the Bible for him, without any particular instruftion or limit as to price.
Mr Davidson the manager was thus
unexpetedly thrown on his ' discretion,' and he, it seemed to me afterwards, wisely decided to exercise that
virtue by buying the book against all
comers, and accordingly he attended
the sale personally and ran the book
until it was knocked down to Messrs
Wiley and Putnam at ~500oo, at that
time pronounced to be a ' mad price,'
though other copies have since been
sold by au&ion at from ~i,6o00 to
near ~4,000.
This c mad price ' was at once heralded as such in the London papers,
and the book was stated to have been
bought by a well-known American
colle&toragainstSirThomasPhillipps,
under exciting circumstances. Sir
Thomas had arranged with Messrs
Payne and Foss, after his peculiar
manner, to buy the Bible for him at
an agreed limit of 300oo. But Sir
Thomas




32    RECOLLECTIONS OF
Thomas was so anxious about the
result that he committed the indiscretion of going to the sale rooms
himself to witness the competition.
When the biddings between Mr
Davidson and Mr Foss had exceeded ~300, Sir Thomas, when he
could not induce Mr Foss to go on,
took up the competition himself, and
ran his American opponent up to
~495, when Mr Foss arrested his
mad career, and the hammer fell at
Mr Davidson's final bid of 500 for
Messrs Wiley and Putnam.
That sale was a bibliographical
event, and was greatly talked and
written about both in London and
New York, insomuch that Mr Lenox, whose name as that of the unlucky purchaser had been freely used,
declined to clear the book from the
New York Custom House, and pay
for it. The cost, including the commission, expenses and the customs
duty, amounting to about $3,000,
was deemed by him an amount of
indiscretion




MR JAMES LENOX         33
indiscretion for which he could not
be responsible. However, after some
refleftion and a good deal of correspondence, he took home the book,
and soon learned to cherish it as'a
bargain and the chief ornament of his
library. Mr Putnam soon after returned to America, and the result of
this campaign was all in my favour.
Mr Lenox used often to pay an unprecedentedly high price for a prime
rarity, with the remark that he ' could
at present find the five pound notes
more easily than such books, but you
must not tell anybody how much I
have paid.' A few years later, when
I quoted the same books at two
to four times the prices he paid,
he willingly removed the injunction of secrecy.


F


IV




IV
'The Wicked Bible'
R  LENOX     was so
strift an observer of
the Sabbath that I
never knew  of his
writing a business letter on Sunday but once. In I855,
while he was staying at Hotel Meurice in Paris, there occurred to me
the opportunity one Saturday afternoon, June I6, of identifying the
long lost odavo Bible of I631,
which has the negative omitted in
the Seventh Commandment, and
purchasing it for fifty guineas. No
other copy was then known, and the
possessor required an immediate answer. However I raised some points
of inquiry and obtained permission to
hold




MR JAMES LENOX        35
hold the little sinner and give the answer on Monday. By that evening's
post I wrote to Mr Lenox and pressed
for an immediate reply, suggesting
that this prodigal though he returned
on Sunday should be housed. Monday brought a letter 'to buy it,' very
short but tender as a fatted calf. On
June 21 I exhibited the volume at a
full meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, at the same time
nicknaming it ' The WICKED BIBLE,'
a name that has stuck to it ever since
though six copies are now known.
In the Proceedings of the Society,
vol. iii. page 2 I 3, appeared this record: 'Henry Stevens, Esq. F.S.A.
exhibitedan ofavo Bible of the authorized version,called "The Wicked Bible" from the circumstance of its being
filled with gross and scandalous typographical errors, not the least remarkable of which is the omission of the
important word not in the Seventh
Commandment, leaving it to read
Thou shalt commit adultery. Upon
Charles




36    RECOLLECTIONS OF
Charles I. being made acquainted with
the faCt by Archbishop Laud, the
King's printers, Robert Barker and
Martin Lucas, were summoned before the Star Chamber, and on the
fa&t being proved were fined in the
sum of 300o, and the entire edition
of I,000 copies was ordered to be destroyed. Although the book has been
diligentlysought after for the last hundred years, no copy has hitherto been
known to have been discovered; and
though many writers have told the
story for the last two hundred years,
no one identified the edition or indicated the year in which it was printed.
The present volume settles the question. It was printed by the Royal
Printers in 163 I,in otavo. The present copy is believed to be unique.
It came from Holland within the
last few days and is on its way to
America. It cost its present owner
fifty guineas.'
In the discussion that followed I
ventured to assure the Society that
though




MR JAMES LENOX         37
though the Commandment was a&ually so printed by the King's printers,
I felt sure that it was not now binding
on the Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries. Lord Macaulay was present
at that meeting, but did not at first
credit the genuineness of the typographical error. Lord Stanhope however, on borrowing the volume, convinced him that it was the true wicked
error.
As this C WICKED BIBLE' has attradted a good deal of attention since
I 8 5 5, and has led certain serious and
learned critics called divines into historical and bibliographical errors, it
may not be uninteresting to name a
few particulars respecing it. The
volume,comprising the Book of Common Prayer, the Genealogies, the Bible and the Psalms in Metre, all bound
in one and as clean and fresh as new,
had been the property of the celebrated John Canne while he resided in
Holland, and was left in a library
founded by him. It was offered to
me




38    RECOLLECTIONS OF
me as ' unique' and priced accordingly, with the assurance that no
abatement would be made. On taking it home to my house in Camden
Square that Saturday night and overhauling my pile of oftavo Bibles laid
aside for collation and binding, I was
both delighted and disappointed to
find that I was already the possessor
of a ' Wicked Bible,' an overlooked
duplicate of the copy offered, though
not so C unique as my other copy,' as
my old American friend Dowse used
to say, for it contained the Bible only,
in inferior condition and wanting
twenty-three leaves in the Psalms.
On Monday morning, when the
owner came for his Bible or the fifty
guineas, I showed him my copy in
triumph, to convince him that his
was not unique and hence was not
worth the price asked. He at once
admitted my plea and accepted ~25.
My junior copy, after being done up
in forel, was sold in the autumn of
1855 to Mr Panizzi for eighteen
guineas,




MR JAMES LENOX         39
guineas, and is now in the British
Museum, locked up in Case 24. a.
41, bearing the stamp of Jan. 3
I 856, when paid for. Mr Winter
Jones was afterwards fortunate
enough to procure the twenty-three
missing leaves for five guineas from
the Rev Mr Jennings, who had
picked up a copy wanting three
leaves for which he asked twenty
guineas, so that the Museum copy is
also complete. Mr Jennings sold the
remainder of his copy, which then
wanted twenty-six leaves, for fifteen
guineas to Mr Francis Fry of Bristol, who I believe succeeded in completing it and sold it to Dr Bandinel
for the Bodleian Library. It was lent
to the Caxton Exhibition of 1877,
where it attrated more attention
than any honest Bible of the Collection. A fourth copy is preserved in
the Euing Library in Glasgow, and a
fifth fell into the hands of Mr Henry
J. Atkinson of Gunnersbury, in
I 8 83. In the autumn of 18 84 a sixth
copy,




40    RECOLLECTIONS OF
copy, which might be designated the
Godiva copy, was brought to me for
identification by a gentleman of
Coventry, who said it had recently
been picked up in Ireland. Thus
you see in less than thirty years this
unique has increased and multiplied
like lost sinners.
The truth seems to be that few
books remain ' unique' long, when
their attraftions have been once
noised abroad. Immediately on completing the purchase I wrote to Mr
George Offor announcing my bibliographical luck, and he replied the
next day, June i8, ' What a world
this would be if such Bibles abounded! Thank goodness they are so
rare that their existence has been
doubted and disbelieved. I and my
father before me sought it for sixty
years diligently as Herod sought the
young Child, and like him could not
find it. Nor can I yet fully believe
its genuineness, but hope soon to
be cured of my unbelief, for seeing
is




MR JAMES LENOX         41
is believing.' A sight of the volume
was his ' convincement.'
Like the early translators this
Bible sought a refuge in Holland,
where it escaped the flames, more
fortunate than Tyndale or Rogers.
Of the six copies now known, this
one preserved in the 'Lenox Library,' New York, is by far the purest
and finest, if not the wickedest of
all; and I never heard that Mr
Lenox ever felt or expressed any
compunctions of conscience   for
having ordered it on a Sunday. It
should perhaps be stated that the
Germans have also their "Wicked
Bible' of precisely like tenor, only as
in many other things the Germans are
a hundred years behind the English.
They are however, I believe, as yet
limited to the possession of a single
copy, which is carefully guarded in
the quaint old library of Wolfenbiittel, where I recently had the sinful pleasure of seeing, handling and
collating it. The wicked typographiG             cal




42     MR JAMES LENOX
cal error consists as in its English
namesake in dropping the negative.
It is a little decimosexto volume in
small German black letter, double
columns, in a form not quite so large
as the English, and has this title:'BIBLIA/ Dasist/ Die gantze/ Heil
Geschrift/ Altes und Neues/ Testaments./ Nach der Teutschen Ubersetzung/ D. Martin Luther/....
Nebst der Vorrede/ Des. S. Her
Baron E. H. von Caustein./ Die
xxxiv Auflage./ Halle, Zu finden in
Maysenhause MDCCXXXI' Exodus
xx. 14. ' Du solt ehebrechen.'
We are not aware if the French
have a like authority.


V




v
Voyages and Travels. Bunyans. Miltons. Shakespeares
5RLENOX excelled all
men I ever knew for
seizingideasandperseveringly runningthem
out to the end. He
possessed an extraordinary aptitude
for sticking to and finishing up any
work he had in hand. This however,
I fancy, was one of the virtues that
was not in all cases its own reward.
His first absorbing penchant was for
colledting early editions of the Bible
and parts thereof in all languages.
Then he took to books relating to
North and South America, including
all the great colle&ions of voyages
and travels, as well as the prior or
original




44    RECOLLECTIONS OF
original editions of which they were
composed. This soon led to colleting everything pertaining to the great
'Age of Disdovery,' whether in Spanish, Portuguese, English, French,
Dutch, Italian or German. In this
way he soon had more pet-lambs than
he could well watch, such as De Bry,
Hulsius, Ramusio, Purchas, Thevenot, Haertgerts, Saeghman, etc.
Then there were all the editions, translations, and variations of Columbus,
Vespucci, Marco Polo, Mandeville,
Varthema, Peter Martyr, Enciso,
Las Casas, Cortes, Oviedo, Gomara,
Cieza, Xeres, etc., etc.
Besides these he took very early to
his favourite author John Bunyan,
and not only edited an edition of the
' Pilgrim's Progress,' but undertook
to colle& all editions and translations
of it. In this he was particularly successful, having eventually acquired
nearly every one of the early English
editions of parts I, II, and III, as
numbered from the st to the 32nd.
No




MR JAMES LENOX          45
No colle&ion known can be compared
with his, that of the late Mr Offor
being in no way equal to it. Indeed
for nearly twenty years I carried in
my pocket lists of the editions of the
P.P. he had, as well as those known
ones he wanted, and in that way catered earnestly, allowing nothing to
slip through my fingers that it was
possible to secure for him. In reading
catalogues and reports from all parts
of the world, one eye at least was always kept peeled for his desiderata.
In the same manner he undertook
to bring into his net all the editions
of Milton, and succeeded in acquiring it is believed nearly all the
known editions, as well as many not
previously recognized, of the early
separate pieces in both prose and
verse of the author of ' Areopagitica'
and' Paradise Lost.' Indeed his colleftion of Miltons excels that of the
British Museum and that of the Bodleian put together, rich as those
libraries are in Miltons.
This




46     RECOLLECTIONS OF
This mode of colle6ing has certainly its advantages, but it can
hardly be denied that it is attended
with serious disadvantages.  The
result of all Mr Lenox's enormous
study and labor, to say nothing of
his vast expenditure, it must be confessed is a ' patchy library' as he left
it. His favorite subjets and authors
he rendered astonishingly rich for a
period of only thirty-five years research; but the subjefts and authors
he totally neglected at the same time
are also astonishingly numerous. The
verdidt of posterity however will
probably be that he ated well his
part, leaving to others the others'
parts. Three or four more lives like
his would render the Lenox Library
an all-round public library.
It is impossible in these brief recollefions to go over regularly the
records of our correspondence from
1845 to 1873, but I may say that
i 854 and I 855 were very busy years
with both of us. As caterer for him
I




MR JAMES LENOX        47
I expended in these two years alone
more than fifty thousand dollars;
many opportunities occurring then
that can hardly ever occur again for
any colletor of Mr Lenox's tastes.
On reviewing the invoices of these
two years, I am confident that if the
same works were now to be colle&ed,
they would cost more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But
can such and so many rare books
ever be colleCted again in that space
of time? A large part of 855-56
Mr Lenox spent in Europe and
picked up rare books wherever he
met with them, but I speak only of
my own relations with him, though
he generally kept me posted in his
accessions, especially in those subje&ts already mentioned.
He had set his heart on' the four
folios,' and by changing and chopping about, besides having secured
the famous Baker copy, he had secured nearly all the variations known,
including all the variations of the
third




48    RECOLLECTIONS OF
thirdfolioof 663. But I could never
induce him to invest in the Shakespeare quartos until December 855.
I then offered him, while he was still
in Paris, in one lump about forty of
the quartos, all in good condition
and some of them very fine, for
50oo, or including a fair set of
the four folios, for60oo. This offer
upset his previous resolutions, and
he bought the whole, thus becoming at one step, the possessor of
perhaps the finest Shakespearian colle&tion then in private hands.
An exad list of the quartos will
enable an expert to judge of the
prices compared with what such a
colletion would bring now. They
were, Merry Wives, 2nd and 3rd
editions, 1619 and I630; Midsummer Night, 2nd, Roberts I600;
Love's Labor's Lost, 2nd, 1631;
Merchant of Venice, Ist, 2nd, 3rd
and 4th editions, 600, 1 600 Roberts,
i637, i652; Taming of the Shrew,
ist edition, 1631; Richard II,
4th




MR JAMES LENOX        49
4th and 5th editions, 615, 1654;
Henry IV, 2nd, 5th and 8th editions,
1599, 1613, 1639; Henry V, 3rd
edition, x608; Richard III, 4th,
7th and 8th editions, 1612, 1629,
1634; RomeoandJuliet, 5th edition,
I637; Macbeth, Ist edition, 1674;
Hamlet, 4th and 7th editions [1 607],
1637; Lear, ist and 3rd editions,
1608, 1655; Othello, st, 2nd and
3rd editions, 1622, 1630, i655;
Pericles, 3rd and 5th editions, 6 9,
i635; Henry VI, 2nd part, 4th
edition [i619], and 3rd part, 3rd
edition [1619]; Sir John Oldcastle,
1600; Lord Cromwell, I 6o2,unique;
Yorkshire Tragedy, I619; Rape of
Lucrece, i6mo, 1616; Birth of Merline, 1662; The Puretaine, I607;
The London Prodigal, i605; and
two or three others, besides the four
folios, all for 600oo He was greatly
pleased with his bargain, but I
could never tempt him to
go further in the Shakespeare quartos.
H            VI




VI
Mr Lenox buys a ' Turner'
T is to be borne in
mind that Mr Lenox
was not merely a book
colle&tor. He was a
good citizen and excellent neighbour, fulfilling his duties
in all situations. The large hall in
his new house, 53 Fifth Avenue, was
constructed rather as a Gallery of Art
than a Library, though adapted to
both. This brings to mind a chara&teristic anecdote, which I often
heard Mr C. R. Leslie, the Royal
Academician, relate of his two friends
Mr Lenox and Mr Turner his
brother Academician. Mr Leslie,
about 1847 I think, received a letter
covering a sight draft on Barings,
requesting




MR JAMES LENOX         51
requesting him to be so good as to
purchase of his friend Mr Turner
the best pi&ture by him he could get
for the money, giving direftions for
the shipment to New York.
With draft in pocket Mr Leslie
'called on the distinguished artist, and
told him frankly that he had called
to purchase one of his pi&tures for an
American friend. 'I have no picture to sell to your American friend,'
was the grumpy reply. ' But surely,'
answered Mr Leslie, who understood
the humour of the artist, ' out of so
many one might very well be spared
for New York.' ' No, my pi&ures
are not adapted to American taste
or American appreciation of Art.
You had better apply to Mr Soandso, if you require a pifture suitable
for the gallery of an American,' and
then commented severely on America
and Americans, their refinement,
their money-grubbings, and their
knowledge of Art. Finally Mr Leslie, all the while well knowing that
Mr




52    RECOLLECTIONS OF
Mr Turner at that time was desirous
of selling his piftures and at reasonable prices too, said, 'Well, Mr Turner, you are in this matter mistaken
I assure you, for I have been connected as an Art teacher with the
Military Academy of West Point,
and am   tolerably well acquainted
with the Art characteristics of that
growing country.   Besides I well
know Mr Lenox, and am sure a
piture of yours could not find a
better home on either side of the
Atlantic. You are too suspicious;
you need run no risk from. him or
me, I have nothing more to say or
do. Here is Mr Lenox's letter and
draft for 800oo which you may encash at Barings to-day. Pray seled
such a pidture as will in your own
judgment do yourself the most credit
in the Art-benighted country you
decry.'
This speech or the letter or the
draft fetched up the artist, and he
promptly confessed that some good
might




MR JAMES LENOX        53
might come even out of New York;
so he at once turned round a small
picture standing on the floor against
the wall and said, ' There, let Mr
Lenox have that, one of my favorites; he is a gentleman, and I retralt:
will that suit you, Mr Leslie? ' ' I
am unwilling to take any responsibility, Mr Turner, in the seleftion;
if the painting satisfies you, and you
recommend it at that price, I will endorse the draft to you and take the
piture away with me.' And that
was the way Mr Lenox won his first
'Turner.'
But this is not the end of the
story. The painting soon after arrived in New York, was cleared from
the Custom House and delivered in
Fifth Avenue only a few minutes
before the closing of the fortnightly
mail for England. Mr Lenox therefore had time only to hastily acknowledge its receipt safe and in
good condition. He had, he wrote,
caught only a glance at the pifture,
but




54     MR JAMES LENOX
but he could not help adding that
that glance disappointed him. On
receiving this curt and scarcely courteous letter, Mr Leslie said he resolved thenceforward to abstain from
executing responsible commissions
for friends. By the following mail
two weeks later came a second letter
from  Mr Lenox, the substance of
which was, ' Burn my last letter, I
have now looked into my " Turner"
and it is all that I could desire. Accept best thanks.' In telling the
story Mr Leslie used sometimes parenthetically and facetiously to remark, 'I suppose Mr Lenox, like
some others who view "Turners" for
the first time, somehow got the
pi6ture bottom side up.'


VII




VII


' The Bay Psalm Book'
Q  v    N   our pecuniary rett lations    Mr   Lenox
^St I    was  so  methodical,
X|B W    prompt and perfetly
honest that I grew
into the habit of relying too much
upon his statements and C footings'
of our accounts. He made mistakes
as well as I, but in his case, as he used
to say, they were fortunately almost
wholly against himself. He had a
particular horror of any blunder that
was in his own favour. Once in New
York, after we had settled up a long
and intricate account with many exchanges and choppings, which could
not be settled by letter, and I had
received




56    RECOLLECTIONS OF
received a pretty large cheque and
invested it in a bill of exchange on
London at a time when I was hard
pressed for ready money, I was surprised one morning before breakfast
by receiving a note from him announcing that he had discovered a
dreadful mistake in our settlement,
and requesting me to call upon him
at nine o'clock. It spoiled my breakfast, for I felt sure that I should
be called upon to disgorge. While
the clock was striking nine I pulled
his bell and was promptly admitted.
'Oh,' said he, 'I thought of that
horrid mistake in bed last night, and
have hardly been able to sleep since;
pray pardon me, I cannot think how
I came to do so stupid a thing; here
is another cheque for five hundred
dollars for that Bible.' I was relieved
and could have hugged him, but as
that was not his way I quietly observed that I had not yet noticed the
error, simply adding, after the manner of Mr Toots, that it was ' of no
consequence,'




MR JAMES LENOX        57
consequence.' I promised to forgive
him, and returned to the Clarendon
with an improved appetite for breakfast.
For nearly ten years Mr Lenox
entertained a longing desire to possess a perfect copy of c THE BAY
PSALM BOOK,' the New England
metrical version of the Psalms printed by Stephen Daye at Cambridge,
N.E. 1640, the first book printed in
what is now the United States. He
gave me to understand that if an opportunity occurred for securing a
copy for him I might go as far as one
hundred guineas. Accordingly from
about 1847 till his death, six years
later, my good friend William Pickering andl put our heads and bookhunting forces together to run down
this rarity.
The only copy we knew of on this
side the Atlantic was a spotless one
in the Bodleian Library, which had
lain there unrecognized for ages, and
even in the printed catalogue of 1843
I             its




s8    RECOLLECTIONS OF
its title was recorded without distintion among the common herd of
Psalms in verse. The book bears no
name of place or printer, the imprint
being simply 'Imprinted I 640.' I
had handled it several times with
great reverence and noted its many
peculiar points, but, as agreed with
Mr Pickering, without making any
sign or imparting any information to
our good and obliging friend Dr
Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian..We
thought that when we had secured a
copy for ourselves, it would be time
enough to acquaint the learned Doctor that he was entertaining unawares
this angel of the New World.
Under these circumstances, therefore, only an experienced collector
can judge of my surprise and inward
satisfation, when on the I 2th Janu,
ary 1855, at Sotheby's, at one of the
sales of Pickering's stock, after untying parcel after parcel to see what
I might chance to see, and keeping
ahead of the auctioneer, Mr Wilkinson,




MR JAMES LENOX        59
kinson, on resolving to prospe& in
one parcel more before he overtook
me, my eye rested for an instant only
on the long lost Benjamin, clean and
unspotted. I instantly closed the
parcel, (which was described in the
Catalogue as Lot ' 531 Psalmes other
Editions, 1630 to I675 black letter,
a parcel,') and tightened the string,
just as Alfred came to lay it on the
table.  A  cold-blooded coolness
seized me, and advancing towards
the table behind Mr Lilly I quietly
bid in a perfe&ly neutral tone 'sixpence,' and so the bids went on increasing by sixpences until half-icrown was reached and Mr Lilly had
loosened the string. Taking up this
very volume he turned to me and
remarked that ' This looks a rare
edition, Mr Stevens, don't you think
so? I do not remember having seen
it before,' and raised the bid to five
shillings. I replied that I had little
doubt of its rarity, though comparatively a late edition of the Psalms,
-                    and




60    RECOLLECTIONS OF
and at the same time gave Mr Wilkinson a sixpenny nod. Thenceforward a' spirited competition' arose
between Mr Lilly and myself, until
finally the lot was knocked down to
'Stevens' for nineteen shillings! I
then called out, with perhaps more
energy than discretion, 'delivered.'
On pocketing this volume, leaving
the other seven to take the usual
course, Mr Lilly and others inquired
with some curiosity, 'What rarity
have you got now?' 'Oh nothing,'
said I, 'but the first English book
printed in America.' There was a
pause in the sale, while all had a good
look at the little stranger. Some said
jocularly,' there has evidently been
a mistake, put up the lot again.'
Mr Stevens, with the book again
safely in his pocket, said, ' Nay, if
Mr Pickering, whose cost mark of y
[3s] did not recognize the prize he
had won, certainly the cataloguer
might be excused for throwing it
away into the hands of the right person




MR JAMES LENOX         61
son to rescue, appreciate and preserve it. I am now fully rewarded
for my long and silent hunt of seven
years.
On reaching Morley's I eagerly
collated the volume, and at first
found it right with all the usual signatures corre&t. The leaves were
not paged or folioed. But on further collation I missed sundry of the
Psalms, enough to fill four leaves.
The puzzle was finally solved when
it was discovered that the inexperienced printer had marked a sheet
with the signature w after v, which
is very unusual.
This was a very distressing disappointment, but I held my tongue,
and knowing that my old friend and
correspondent, George Livermore of
Cambridge, N.E., possessed an imperfet copy, which he and Mr
Crowninshield, after the noble example of the' Lincoln Nosegay,' had
won from the Committee of the Old
South,' in Boston, together with another




6z     RECOLLECTIONS OF
other and perfet copy, I proposed
an advantageous exchange, and obtained the four missing leaves. Mr
Crowninshield strongly advised Mr
Livermore against parting with his
four leaves, because, as he said, 'they
would enable Stevens to complete
his copy, and place it in the library
of Mr Lenox, who would then crow
over us because he also had a perfeft
copy of the Bay Psalm Book.'
Having thus completed my copy
and had it bound by Francis Bedford
in his best style, I sent it to Mr
Lenox for ~80. Five years later I
bought the Crowninshield Library in
Boston for $io,ooo, mainly to obtain his perfect copy of the Bay Psalm
Book, and brought the whole library
to London. This second copy, after
being held several months, was at
the suggestion of MrThomasWatts,
offered to the British Museum for
/I 50. The Keeper of the Printed
Books however never had the courage to send it before the Trustees
for




MR JAMES LENOX        '6
for approval and payment; so after
waiting five or six years longer the
volume was withdrawn, bound by
Bedford, taken to America in I868,
and sold to Mr George Brinley for
150 guineas. At the Brinley sale
in March 1878, No. 847, Part I, it
was bought by Mr Cornelius Van.
derbilt for $I,200, or more than
three times the cost of my first copy
to Mr Lenox. The British Museum
still lacks the first book
printed in New
England.


VIII




ram s


VIII
'he Drake Map. Aratus' Phaenomena. The Forged Tyndale
Manuscript,N O&ober 1849, there
occurred for sale at
Sotheby's a very rare
copper-plate map of
the World, represented in two hemispheres, engraved
by Hondius, and published by him
at Amsterdam about i 595. On each
side and below it were pasted broad
columns of text in Dutch, taken
chiefly from Hakluyt and Linschoten.
There were also inserted in the text
fine copper-plate portraits of Drake
and Cavendish, and on the map were
traced the routes of those two celebrated




MR JAMES LENOX         65
brated circumnavigators. The whole
sheetmeasured about 37 by 25 inches.
I had resolved to secure this unique
geographical gem for Mr Lenox,
and, as was my general custom at
that time, gave my order, under a
mistaken notion of economy, to a
celebrated bookseller who undertook
to buy for me at sales at a small
commission, drawing upon me at
short sight as fast as the purchases
amounted to o50 or so, he paying
the auctioneers, as he could arrange,
sometimes months later. For this
map I gave a limit of 50 guineas. It
was however bought by him fot
another order for something under
30 guineas, and immediately delivered. When I came to enquire
into the matter a cock-and-bull story
was told me about a mistake between
his clerk and the auctioneer, which
on being run out proved to be not
so much the truth as the other thing.
So after that I kept my auftion orders
to myself and executed my own comK        missions,




66    RECOLLECTIONS OF
missions, greatly to my own advantage. In this way Mr Lenox and I
lost the Drake, but we gained in
confidence and experience. I was
afterwards glad to find that the map
was bought for the British Museum,
where one could use it as freely as
if it were his own. This proved a
valuable lesson, both to self and correspondents, having taught me severely while a&ing as confidential
agent never to intrust important, or
even trifling, commissions to a third
party, however honest and plausible.
' Close mouths catch no flies.' It is
a great mistake to imagine you are
going to get your books cheaper in
the long run by intrusting your
commissions to a bookseller who
threatens to oppose you unless you
buy off his opposition by giving him
your orders. Thorpe failed in this
manoeuvre as others have conspicuously done since. They may get the
lots, but are pressed in the chase into
giving often more than necessary.
Shortly




MR JAMES LENOX         67
Shortly after, in  8So, there occurred for sale at the same auftion
rooms a copy of' Aratus' Phaenomena,' Paris 559, in 4~ with a few
manuscript notes and this autograph
signature on the title " Jo. Milton,
Pre 2s 6d I631."  This I thought
would be a desirable acquisition for
Mr Lenox, and accordingly I ventured to bid for it as far as ~40
against my late opponent for the
Drake Map, but he secured it at,40 ios, remarking that c Mr. Panizzi will not thank you for thus
running the British Museum.' 'That
remark,' I replied, C is apparently one
of your gratuities. Mr Panizzi is,
I think, too much a man of the
world to grumble at a fair fight. He
has won this time, though at considerable cost, and I am sure Mr
Lenox will be the first to congratulate him on securing such a prize for
the British Museum.' ' I did not
know that you were bidding for Mr
Lenox.' 'It was not necessary that
you




68    RECOLLECTIONS OF
you should.'  Perhaps at another
time,' said he, C we may arrange the
matter before-hand so as not to oppose each other.' ' Very well,' I replied, C if you will bring me a note
from Mr Panizzi something to this
effedt: " Mr Stevens, please have a
knock-out with the bearer, the agent
of the British Museum, on lot * *
and greatly oblige Mr John Bull and
your Obdt Servant, A. P.," I will
consider the proposition, and if Mr
Lenox or any other of my interested
correspondents is not unwilling to
combine or conspire to rob or cheat
the proprietors, the "c thing" may
possibly be done. Meanwhile until
this arrangement is concluded let us
hold our tongues and pursue an
honest course.' That man never
again suggested to me to join him in
a ' knock-out.'
On the 27th of June i 86, there
was sold at Sotheby's, in Mr George
Offor's sale, lot ' I 93 Portions of the
New Testament, translated from the
Greek




MR JAMES LENOX         69
Greek into English by that noble
and venerable martyr William Tyndale, in his own handwriting, and
accompanied by his own drawings in
I 502.'  This handsome volume,
elaborately bound by C. Murton, had
often been shown to me by Mr Offor
as the ' Pearl of his Colledtion.' He
apparently himself had no doubt of
its genuineness and authenticity, and
in the prolegomena of Bagster's
Hexapla had himself so described it.
Anderson however in his Annals,
II, Appendix iii, ridiculed this idea,
and suggested 1 562 instead of 1 502
as the date of the MS. In the auction catalogue nearly a page is devoted to the volume, setting forth
Mr Offor's claims and the various
reasons why it should be regarded
a forgery, with this caveat emptor the
lot 'must be purchased on the buyer's
own judgment as to its being genuine
or not.' The paper is undoubtedly
older.than I502, but the 27 drawings are copies, some of them, of
well-known




70    RECOLLECTIONS OF
well-known pifures of later date.
Mr Offor valued the volume at
~300, a considerable price in his
day. It was bought in for the Offor
family for 3 I.
After the first two out of the
eleven days' sale, and before scarcely
any of the lots had been cleared,
Sotheby's premises were burnt out,
including, among many other colle&tions, the whole of the Offor
Library. The Offor salvage, burnt,
wet and scorched, was bought by me
for ~300, including this' Tyndale'
little damaged, except that the ' antique oak cover' was somewhat
smoked, warped and injured, but all
was easily restored. On careful and
critical examination the volume was
pronounced and treated as a forgery,
not of 1562 but of the present century. What then was to be done
with it? The MS. had got itself
into history, and had become an
authority, spurious or genuine. To
destroy it would only be lending aid
to




MR JAMES LENOX - 71
to those who believed in its genuineness, while its opponents would be
deprived of the best evidence of the
forgery, the book de visu.
Under these circumstances, after
having offered it at a small price to
the British Museum, the Bodleian
and Mr Francis Fry without success,
I sent it to Mr Lenox as a rank
forgery, and submitted to him the
necessity, for the sake of truth, of
preserving it carefully as a warning.
He agreed with me in this suggestion
and purchased the volume for the Lenox Library at ~25. It was agreed
that it should be branded for ever as
a forgery, of no historical or critical
value whatever. Now what is the
subsequent history of that remarkable volume?. Mr Lenox died in
18 80, having apparently forgotten to
brand the outcast. More recently a
German scholar, now residing in
New Jersey, while searching for materials respeding William Tyndale
has turned up this rejefted but preserved




72    RECOLLECTIONS OF
served pretender, and in his new
edition of Tyndale's Pentateuch, pp.
Ivi-lix, has very minutely described
it in four large pages, thus giving it
an importance and prominence it has
no right to, and which abler, honester
and more accurate writers will find it
hard hereafter to combat.
Dr Mombert, it is true, in quoting
Anderson and Westcott showing that
these writers regarded the work as
spurious, casts a doubt over its authenticity, making a fair show of research, but he fails altogether to put
his foot firmly down on the imposition. He ought in my judgment to
have omitted noticing it altogether,
or have pronounced the verdidt of
a scholar and historian. He has
merely scotched the serpent and not
strangled it, a great injustice to Mr
Lenox and the Lenox Library. This
slip-shod bibliography in history is,
I am sorry to say, becoming the
fashion in New York and Boston.
Would-be historians and 'narrative'
writers




MR JAMES LENOX         73
writers are industriously picarooning
and compiling ' history' by stringing
together an ostentatious show of discordant authorities, relevant, irrelevant and contradi&tory, leaving the
vitimized reader to draw his own
conclusions, because as historians
they either are not able to form
a sound opinion, or dare
not express it.


L


IX






IX
The Dati Columbus and Hariot's
Virginia
ITHIN two years of
his entering on the
great proje&t of colleting rare books relating to America, Mr
Lenox became very desirous of possessing a good and perfeft copy of
'Virginia's First Folio,' that is,
Thomas Hariot's 'Briefe and true
Report of the new found land of
Virginia,' published in English, with
copper-plate engravings by Theodore
De Bry at Frankfort in 1 90, after
John White's drawings. I had already provided Mr John Carter
Brown with a fine copy, but led Mr
Lenox




MR JAMES LENOX        75
Lenox to believe that even London
could not be relied upon for another
copy of so rare and important a book
in the same decade.
But an opportunity occurred
sooner than could have been counted
on. One morning in June 1847,
while walking down the King's Library, I saw approaching, Mr Panizzi
with his friend Sir David Dundas;
When we approached within about
ten yards, Mr Panizzi stopped and
said, with arms a-kimbo and a most
quizzical face,' Tell me Mr Stevens,
have you seen Mr Libri's catalogue?'
'Yes,' I replied. ' Are you going to
buy for your friend Mr Lenox the
Dati Columbus?' ' Yes, since you
ask me the dire& question, that is my
intention, and I answer you frankly;
though I am not in the habit of telling my right hand what my left is
going to do. I have not yet received
a specific order, but I know Mr Lenox's drift.' 'Very well,' he said.
'It is between us three, and you may
speak




76   IRECOLLECTZIONS OF
speak frankly; but you really must
not buy that Columbus Letter in
Italian against the British Museum.
Now that we have the Grenville
Columbuses, with the others we had
before, the library possesses, I believe,
all the known editions except the
Paris one you showed me before you
sent it to your friend Mr Brown. I
ought not to miss acquiring this for
many reasons, and therefore I ventured to put this blunt question in
the presence of Sir David.' Then
Sir David said, 'Certainly the British
Museum ought to secure this little
book at any price in reason. What
do you think it will go for?' I replied, ' Probably from f 5o to iL I0o,
perhaps more, it being four leaves,
unique, and well bound.' 'I am
afraid,' said he, ' one hundred pounds
is too much for the Trustees to pay
openly for only four leaves; still,
they ought to have it at that price if
necessary, or even more.' ' Now,
Mr Stevens,' said Mr Panizzi, scac
you




AIR JAMES LENOX       77
you help us to the book without any
injustice to Mr Lenox?' I replied,
'Yes, I can do it in this way. The
library possesses an imperfedt duplicate, " Hariot's History of Virginia,"
in folio, I 590, wanting the last three
leaves. I have those leaves, and am
able therefore to make the book
perfet. I offer you then to go or
send to Paris and bid for this " Dati
Columbus" in Mr Libri's sale at the
end of July or early in August, to the
extent of Ioo (subsequently raised
to 1 1 20), and if I purchase it at any
sum within this limit, I will give it to
the British Museum in exchange for
the Hariot in the condition it is now
in.' They both said that this was
fair and liberal, and Mr Panizzi
added,' Now let us keep our own
counsel and say nothing to anybody.
I will at once reduce the proposition
to writing and lay it before the
Trustees at their next meeting, and
if they approve, it is a bargain.'
The following extra& of a long
letter




78    RECOLLECTIONS OF
letter to my father in Vermont, dated
London, July 3 1847, continues the
story as it was written at the time:
-' I expe& to go to the Continent
again this month. The Trustees of
the British Museum meet to-day.
There is before them a proposition
for purchasing a rare little book to
be sold soon by auftion in Paris.
The Museum is very desirous of
having it, but they wish to avoid the
notoriety of paying an extravagant
price for it. It is a little Italian poem
by Dati, giving an account of Columbus's first voyage. It is a tra&
of only four leaves, and was printed
at Florence in I493. Well, I have
proposed to the librarian, Mr Panizzi,
to go to Paris myself and bid for the
book in my own name, to the extent,
if necessary, of lioo or $500, and
if I get it for that amount or under,
I am to give it to the Museum in
exchange for Hariot's account of
Virginia, printed in English for
Theodore De Bry, Frankfort  o90,
a




MRI JAMES LENOX        79
a book of the greatest rarity, the first
English account of Virginia.'
The Trustees 'approved,' and at
the end of July, instead of going over
to Paris myself, I entrusted all my
commissions to Messrs Payne and
Foss, with a limit on the ' Dati' of
i 20. On the 9th of August Mr
Foss handed me the book and his
bill, with the remark, 'I have no
doubt your friend Mr Lenox will be
pleased with his bargain and his
unique Italian Columbus.' The bill
was for No. I 253 Lettera di Colomb. fr. 1700. Frais de la Vente,
io per cent. 170. Fr I870, a 251so,73 6s 8d.' The same day, taking
the precious little waif to the British
Museum, I handed it to Mr Panizzi,
and there was far more rejoicing over
it than over the ninety and nine larger
books that were rapidly coming into
the Museum under the then new
~o0,000 annual parliamentary grant.
In the presence of Mr Winter
Jones and Mr Watts, Mr Panizzi
at




80    RECOLLECTIONS OF
at once delivered into my hands the
duplicate Hariot, for which I gave
him this acknowledgment:-' British
Museum, August 9 1847. Received
this day of Mr Panizzi a copy of
Hariot's Virginia in English, printed
at Frankfort, by Wechel, at the cost
of Theodore De Bry in 1590, in
exchange for Dati, La Lettera, etc.,
Columbus's letter in Italian, entitled
La Lettera di Colomb and printed
at Florence 1493, said book being
No. 1253 of Libri's sale at Paris, in
July-August I 847. Henry Stevens.'
Thus I won that brush for Mr
Lenox, and thus Mr Lenox missed
securing the Dati, a loss he ever
mourned, though he fully approved
of the negotiations with Mr Panizzi.
That Dati was then, and still is believed to be, unique, though another
copy was said to be in the Trivulzio
Library in Milan. Immediately on
returning to Morley's with Hariot
under my arm, I added my three end
leaves to complete the volume, and
alone




MR JAMES LENOX        8I
alone in my own mind and room,
there was yet more rejoicing over the
acquisition of this prince of American
rarities, and its fortunate completion,
than over the ninety and nine other
rare books I had already procured
for Mr Lenox. He willingly paid
me one hundred guineas for the
volume when I sent it to him with
a history of its capture. The whole
transactions from beginning to end
were, it seemed to me, a good illustration of Adam Smith's idea of free
trade-a good bargain for all
parties engaged in it.


M


X




x
Further Exchanges with the British
Museum
BUT of this transadtion
as a precedent grew
another, in which both
Mr Lenox and Mr
Panizzi were again
vitorious, each having made the best
bargain in his own estimation. A
few weeks after winning the Hariot
I went for a month's tour through
France and Germany, and in November 1847, went to America, all
the time in a&tive correspondence
with Mr Brown and Mr Lenox, but
often through my good old friend,
Mr Obadiah Rich, the bibliographer.
Mr Rich had in contemplation a reprint




MR JAMES LENOX        83
print of Hakluyt's' Divers Voyages'
I582, 4to, but his own copy was
very imperfect. He knew of my
transa&tions with Mr Panizzi about
the Dati-Hariot exchange, and during
my absence called on Mr Panizzi
on my affairs, and incidentally proposed an exchange of some rare
book for the Museum duplicate
Hakluyt. Mr Panizzi told him that
his attention had lately been called to
No. 5731 of Bohn's Guinea Catalogue of 1841, ' Ames's Typographical Antiquities, or an Historical
Account of the Origin and Progress
of Printing in Great Britain and
Ireland, containing memoirs of our
Antient Printers, and a Register of
Books printed by them from I471
to  600; considerably augmented
by William Herbert, 3 vols, 1785 -1790, on large paper, interleaved
and bound in 6 royal quarto volumes,
containing a vast quantity of Manuscript Additions and corre6tions by
Herbert himself, prepared for a new
edition




84    RECOLLECTIONS OF
edition, neat in russia, uncut,,( S 5s.
A portion only of the first volume
of this colleftion has been used by
Dr Dibdin in his new edition. The
remainder has not been used by any
bibliographer.'
On enquiry of Mr Bohn, some
six or seven years after the issue of
his catalogue, Mr Panizzi was told
that the work had just before been
ordered from New York through
Mr Rich. On applying to Mr Rich
Mr Panizzi received this note:
' 2 Red Lion Square, Oftober 4th
[1848].-Mr Rich presents his respefts to Mr Panizzi, and begs leave
to inform him that he sent Herbert's
own copy of his edition of Ames, with
additions to New York; but believes
that the person to whom he sent it
[MrLenox] would have no objeftion
to part with it, particularly in exchange for some of the Museum
duplicates; and Mr Rich would engage at once to give it for the copy
of Hakluyt's ' Divers Voyages,' 4to,
I582,




MR JAMES LENOX         85
5 8 2, notwithstanding that the Museum duplicate wants the two maps."
Mr Panizzi was agreeable to this
proposal, but Mr Lenox was not.
Having lost this work of Hakluyt
in my first invoice at ten guineas by
a blunder of his own, as already
mentioned, and the Herbert with
commission, Customs duty and expenses having cost him about ~20,
he was not disposed to sanCtion Mr
Rich's proposal, but was willing to
give the Herbert for another little
Museum duplicate of which I had
written him, viz. ' Hernando de
Souto [or Soto], Relacam verdadeira
de la Florida,' Evora, en Casa de
Andree Burgos, 1557, small 8vo,
the original edition in Portuguese.
Mr Panizzi jumped at Mr Lenox's
offer (there being another fine copy in
the Grenville Library under SOUTO),
and laid it before the Trustees for
approval. The exchange was completed in March. 849; but I believe
that the Trustees at that time put a
stopper




86     RECOLLECTIONS OF
stopper on any further exchanges of
duplicates.
Mr Lenox was so well pleased
with his bargain that it went far to
reconcile him to the loss of the Italian
Columbus by Dati, which by the
way he had never positively ordered,
and could have had no just claim
upon me for it. Herbert's Ames,
the Great National work of English
bibliography, thus found its way
back from America into the National
Library, the last enterprise of its
kind which Mr Panizzi was permitted to effet, where its existence
is now silently recorded in the newly
printed catalogue under AMES (Joseph) as ' Another copy,' with the
press mark, 824. k. 3 i, but placed
in the Keeper's room, shelved behind
the door, where it has quietly remained some thirty-five years, a mine
of pure English bibliography undefiled, ' lost upon earth,' still almost
if not quite unknown to outsiders,
and altogether forgotten or seldom
if




MR JAMES LENOX        87
if ever consulted by insiders. One
of these days however I have little
doubt some prowling bibliographer
will ' discover' it, and perhaps quarrel with a brother mouser about who
was first in the discovery, as two of
them did in I875 respecting Poe's
unique pamphlet entitled ' Tamerlane and other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston, 1827,' 1 2mo, which
I bought of Mr Samuel G. Drake
as one of that poet's pieces, in Boston in 1859. It was sent into the
Museum in   860 with many other
Boston trats, and was paid
for in 1867 one
shilling!


XI




-


XI
The Columbus Letters and the Vermonter's views as to the editio
princeps
W        OTH Mr Brown and
%!  E   ) ~Mr Lenox, my two
$p chief correspondents
S  E  m   in early days, were
e        ~exceedingly sweet on
everything relating to Columbus, and
sometimes I found it very difficult to
prevent their colliding. Mr Brown
had the start, and secured the first
choice in 1 845 and 1 846. Notably
among the four editions of 1493 at
seven to ten guineas each, he secured
the unique Paris edition with the
colophon line, not in the (Rawlinson)
Bodleian or Gottingen examples of
that




MR JAMES LENOX         89
that edition. But in the first Libri
sale in London at Sotheby's, February 19 1849, there occurred a
copy of the small ohtavo Latin edition
of the Columbus Letter in eight
leaves, with two leaves for the cover
on the same paper, in all ten leaves,
with seven different woodcuts.
Mr Brown ordered this lot with
a limit of 25 guineas, and Mr Lenox
of p25. Now as my chief correspondents had been indulged with a
good deal of liberty, scarcely ever
considering their orders completely
executed till they had received the
books and decided whether or not
they would keep them, I grew into
the habit of considering all purchases my own until accepted and
paid for. Consequently when positive orders were given, which was
very seldom, I grew likewise into the
habit of buying the lot as cheaply as
possible, and then awarding it to
the correspondent who gave the highest limit. This is not always quite
N            fair




90     RECOLLECTIONS OF
fair to the owner, but in my case it
would have been unfair to myself to
make my clients compete, as not unfrequently the awarded lot was declined and had to go to another.
Well, in the case of this Columbus
Letter, though I had five or six
orders, I purchased it for /i6 ios,
and accordingly, as had been done
many times before within the last
five or six years without a grumble,
I awarded it to the highest limit, and
sent the little book to Mr John
Carter Brown.   Hitherto in cases
of importance, Mr Lenox had generally been successful, because he
usually gave the highest limit. But
in this case he rebelled. He wrote
that the book had gone under his
commission of 4,5 that he knew
nobody else in the transa&ion, and
that he insisted on having it, or he
should at once transfer his orders to
some one else.  I endeavoured to
vindicate my condu&t by stating our
long-continued pradtice, with which
he




MR JAMES LENOX         9I
he was perfectly well acquainted, but
without success. He grew more
and more peremptory, insisting on
having the book solely on the ground
that it went under his limit.
At length after some months of
negotiation Mr Brown, on being
made acquainted with the whole correspondence, very kindly, to relieve
me of the dilemma, sent the book to
Mr Lenox without a word of comment or explanation, except that
though it went also below his higher
limit, he yielded it to Mr Lenox for
peace. Mr Brown was exceedingly
vexed with Mr Lenox, and pronounced the demand selfish, and
under all the circumstances both illiberal and unbusinesslike.  They
were both old bachelors, and I suppose found it unpleasant to be crossed;
while I found it sometimes difficult
to navigate between them without
giving offence to one or the other.
However,from that time I resorted,
in cases of duplicate ordersfrom them,
to




92     RECOLLECTIONS OF
to the expedient of always putting
the lot in at one bid above the lower
limit, which after all, I believe, is the
fairer way in the case of positive
orders. This sometimes cost one of
them a good deal more money, but
it abated the chafing and generally
gave satisfadion. Both thought the
old method the fairest when they
got the prize. But I was obliged on
the new system of bidding to insist
on the purchaser keeping the book
without the option of returning it.
A case in point occurred shortly after
at Messrs Puttick and Simpson's,
when the German Columbus Letter
of 1497 occurred for sale. This time
the limits were reversed, Mr Lenox's
being 25 guineas and Mr Brown's
~25. I bought the lot for Mr Lenox at one bidding of ~26, and
shortly after secured another copy for
MrBrown for less than half that price.
These specimens however were
of small account, the ordered books
always being but a very small percentage




MR JAMES LENOX        93
tage of the rarities colledted and sent
out on approval. But to this little octavo Columbus hangs a bibliographical tale which may perhaps as well
be noticed here as anywhere, especially as I have kept my discovery a
dozen years, and the revelation of it
now may possibly aid in clearing up
the entangled question of the editio
princeps of this most important publication respe&ting the discovery of
the New World.
Mr Lenox greatly rejoiced in the
acquisition of this odavo Columbus
Letter, placing it as the FIRST EDITION
in his bibliography of the Letter subjoined to his translation of, Nicolaus
Syllacius de Insulis Meridiani atque
Indici Maris Nuper Inventis,' privately printed at New York in I 860,
in quarto, Appendix p. xxxv. It is
well known to the cognoscenti, that
the numerous writers on the voyages
of Columbus and the discovery of
America are by no means agreed as
to which of the many editions in Latin
of




94     RECOLLECTIONS OF
of the first letter of Columbus, on his
return from his first voyage in March
I493, is the original or editio princeps. It is a question of no little importance, as evidenced by the warm
discussions of Bossi, Morelli, Navarrette, Humboldt, Brunet, Major, Lenox, Harrisse,Varnhagen, Gayangos,
and others. My own forty years' bibliographical studies have led me to
differ from the reasonings and conclusions of all these writers.
It was the discovery of the origin
of this little odtavo edition that has
I think become the key to the mystery.  In I873, while at Basle, I
visited the public library, and was informed by the accomplished librarian,
who is well up in the history of Basle
printing and printers, among other
important bibliographical matters,
that the celebrated printer Froben,
who began printing at Basle in I49I,
bequeathed his very nearly complete
collection of the books printed by
himself, well and carefully bound, to
the




MR JAMES LENOX        95
the library of a monastery over the
river opposite the town, and that this
extremely valuable collection had recently been transferred to the Public
Library of Basle. I then, by a sort
of inspiration, inquired if there was
any conne6tion between Bergman de
Olpe and Froben, when it appeared
that Olpe was at first a bookseller or
publisher, and that some if not all of
his early books of I49I-94 were
printed for him by Froben, including
the quarto Verardus-Columbus. In
running out this idea, I was rejoiced
to find among the Froben-books a
thick, dumpy volume of trats in
small o6tavo, among which was a fine
and clean copy of this Libri-StevensBrown-Lenox otavo Columbus letter, without the two leaves of cover
(the first and tenth), but with the
identical woodcuts that are found in
the quarto Olpe of 1494. Thus both
the o&tavo and quarto editions were
proved beyond a doubt to have come
from the press of Froben.
Now




96    RECOLLECTIONS OF
Now this important point being
established, no one will I suppose
for a moment contend that Froben
at Basle had the honour of thus issuing the editio princeps in April or
May 1 493, but rather received a copy
of the original impression from Rome
in eleven or twelve days (the then
usual time of transit) after publication, say about the middle of May.
We know that another edition was
issued in Paris by Guio Marchant in
two forms, exactly alike, except that
one has a colophon line and the other
is without it. Besides these reprints
in Latin there were two editions of
Dati's translation into Italian published at Florence, Otober 25th and
26th 1493, all following one and
the same prototype, probably the 34 -line, Gothic letter edition without
date, name of printer or place, but
generally attributed to the press of
Stephen Planck of Rome, at the end
of April or beginning of May 1493,
when Pope Alexander's 'demarcation'




MR JAMES LENOX          97
tion' bull of the 4th of May was
printed and published. All these reprints alike follow certain characteristics that are unmistakable.
The announcement of so great a
discovery would spread like wild-fire
throughout Christendom, and hence
the prompt reprints of Basle and
Paris, and the poetic translation of
Florence. Is it at all likely that these
reprinters would delay a day for a
new and revised edition? Certainly
not. Ergo, I think that both the
Basle and the Paris editions, as well
as the work of Dati, followed the
original announcement. Now from
certain points in the title (which was
added by the translator intoLatin), and
certain specimens of bad grammar or
typographical errors or false readings, etc., which appear alike in all
these reprints, it is not difficult in
my judgment to trace the parent
edition. The Latin of the first edition is crude and puerile, and hence
probably the much changed edition
o              of




98     RECOLLECTIONS OF
of Eucharius Silber,Rome 1493, and
the one of 33 lines with similar readings, generally attributed to the press
of Stephen Planck, without date or
names of place and printer, are both
subsequent to the original issue.
This original, as well as the Basle
and Paris reprints, all have the name
of Ferdinand only in the title, with
Aliander of Cosco as the translator
the 29th of April 1493, while the
two other Rome editions have Ferdinand and Isabella with Leander. It
is very likely that a young gentleman
of extraordinary precocity in languages, named Aliander, then attached to the Vatican Library, and
subsequently a sort of Mezzofanti,
was the puerile translator for the
Pope. These fats and suggestions,
submitted to Mr Lenox in the autumn
of i 873, shook his faith in his oftavo
editio princeps.  These points interested him very much, and will be
worked out more fully in another
place.
Mr




MR JAMEI S LENOX       99
Mr Lenox was a great stickler for
naked truth, and seldom expressed
positive opinions except when he had
formed them. When therefore he
had booked an opinion he was very
tenacious of it, though he might have
forgotten the particular process on
which it was based. It was therefore sometimes a little pleasant to
show him that somebody else as well
as myself sometimes made mistakes
or arrived at wrong conclusions.
This editio princeps of Columbus's
Letter was a case in point. He desired to possess it above all things
because he then believed it to be the
first edition. He was thus unconsciously led into a selfish argument
that would not hold water. He subsequently abandoned that idea,
though he was less positive
about the original.
XII






XII
Washington's Farewell Address
BOUT 1847 or 1848
it was announced by
the administrators of
the late David  C.
Claypoole of Philadelphia, proprietor and editor of the
'Daily Advertiser,' that they were
about to sell by auftion in that city
the original autograph manuscript
of Washington's Farewell Address,
given to Claypoole by Washington
himself in September 1796. Mr Lenox bought it against the Congress
Library for $2,200 I think, while
some blamed him for competing
against the Government Library,
where such a national relic ought to
find




MR JAMES LENOX        101
find a resting-place. He however
offered the library committee not to
compete under their limit, if they
would tell him how far they intended
to go. They declined to tell him their
limit, or even if they intended to buy
it, so he very properly disregarded
them. There is probably no class of
appointed men so often called upon
to decide without experience as library committees, whose chief delight
seems to be to sit on librarians disposed to independent decisions.
Mr Lenox all his life was his own
library committee. In i 8So he privately printed this precious manuscript with variorum notes and other
illustrative papers in one of the most
sumptuous volumes ever issued in the
United States up to that time,' 54
copies folio, 175 copies quarto.
Printed for Presents only.' He had
most of the copies expensively and
appropriately bound in morocco
extra, with emblematic toolings in
gold. On coming to Europe in May
I852,




I02   RECOLLECTIONS OF
i 8 5 2, he brought several copies with
him for distribution among libraries
and friends. In June he brought to
my office at Morley's about a dozen
copies inscribed to libraries and individuals, with a view of my having
them done up, addressed and distributed free of cost to the recipients.
On looking over the copy inscribed
to me, I complimented him on the
beauty, taste and finish of the volume.
Yes,' said he, ' until I undertook to
print that work, I never knew the
difficulty of printing without typographical errors. The whole book
was read over many, many times,
both by myself and several literary
friends, but never without discovering some provoking blunder. But
we persevered, having it all in type,
until after a dozen or more revises,
no one of us could find another misprint, and so I then gave orders for
it to go to press. It is said that the
Oxford University Press offers a
guinea for every typographical error
in




MR JAMES LENOX         103
in its Bibles. I should not fear to
make a similar offer respe6ting this
book, for I am thoroughly convinced
that the printing is absolutely corret.'
Yes, Mr Lenox,' I replied, ' the
book at sight appears perfe&t. The
leaves as you turn them over seem to
talk to you, but this one I am now
looking at appears to grumble, I suppose, because of the words " three
drafts of such a papar." Why " papar" instead of "paper"?' He cast his
quick eye on the page. It was even so.
His 'pride of accuracy' evaporated
in a moment, and he wilted into my
arm-chair as if he had been shot. It
was I believe his first book, and he
was ill prepared for such a calamity.
I pitied his distress. ' Well,' at last
he said, ' it is my own fault, "and pity
'tis,'tis true." What in the world am
I to do? I much dislike an erratum
note, and it is a great deal of trouble
to cancel the leaf and rebind the
volume. I am distressed beyond
measure.' cNevermind,' said I, "we'll
fix




Io4   RECOLLECTIONS OF
fix it. Leave the books with me, and
come here to-morrow at this hour.
In all these copies the error shall be
made to disappear.' 'I am,' said he,' so
helpless and reckless now, that I shall
do as you say, for I can never present
the copies with the knowledge that
they contain such a blunder.'
He went away despondent, and I
immediately sent to my old friend,
John Harris senior, to come with his
tools to my office at once for a few
hours' work. On examining the
stout, well-sized paper, Harris immediately comprehended the remedy,
and placing a thick lignum vite round
ruler under the word ' papar,' with a
keen razor carefully shaved off the
ink from the letter' a' without hardly
touching the fibre underneath. Having done the same to all the copies,
he next with a fine camel-hair pencil
replaced it with an 'e' with ink
coloured to match the surrounding
letters, in an inimitable manner, as
John Harris alone could do it. When
Mr




MR JAMES LENOX.        I05
Mr Lenox called the next day the
old artist was there to show him his
handywork. The restoration was
perfeft, and not to be detested by Mr
Lenox, who was if possible more
delighted than he was despondent the
day before. After thanking Harris,
he inquired how much he was to be
paid. ' Well,' said Harris, ' since you
appear to be so well pleased with my
work, and I have had to do it here,
I shall venture to ask you fifteen
shillings for the twelve copies.' 'And
cheap enough too,'replied Mr Lenox,
handing him a sovereign; ' and pray
take this too, besides my best thanks,
as a mark of my appreciation,' handing him another sovereign. My own
copy of the book was not so corrected,
I preferring to keep it as a memorial
of the fallibility of one of the most
exa&t and conscientious men I
ever knew. See Preface,
page iv line 9.
P             XIII


p


XIII




XIII


T'he Colletion of Hulsius. The Wyclife manuscripts. Washington's Library
UT ' Finis' beckons,
while there is room
leftto only summarize
X       a few of the many
remaining jottings of
my reminiscences of Mr Lenox. Perhaps some of these dropt stitches
may be picked up in another place.
I intended to speak of our luck, perseverance and hairbreadth escapes, in
bringing together his extraordinary
colle&ions ofDe Bry,Hulsius,Thevenot, Haertgerts, Saeghman, Colyn,
Hakluyt, Purchas, etc. The newspaper stories of the extent and cost
of




MR JAMES LENOX         107
of the Lenox De Bry are wild and
bottomless, yet it is one of the best
and most comprehensive sets known.
His Hulsius it is believed was without a rival at the time of his death.
In 1847 I provided him with a complete set, mixed editions, of the 27
parts (counting part eleven as two)
for ~ 25! after having supplied the
Ternaux-Compans set to Mr Brown
at the same price. Then commenced
his more than thirty years' struggle
for all the other editions, cancels,
variations, etc., which resulted in his
marvellousset. At everything known
he aimed, and acquired much hitherto
unknown, but he was finally obliged
to submit to the humiliation of knowing of three important variations
which he never could win, and was
therefore forced to supply them in
facsimile. All these editions and variations,picked up separately from many
sources, cost him much research over
a long time, besides many hundreds
of pounds. Since his death in i 880,
my




io8   RECOLLECTIONS OF
my long watchfulness in his behalf
has been rewarded by finding, at considerable cost, all these three desiderata. But they came into my net,
alas! too late for Mr Lenox, and
therefore now go to adorn my own
matchless set of Hulsius, which in the
various editions extends to over
sixty volumes. I meant also to have
spoken of the five Caxtons and the
block books to which I helped him,
besides the two early manuscript New
Testamentsby Wycliffe, one ofwhich
in odavo, about 14Io, has the long
Prologue to the Romans, not included in the 4-volume Oxford edition of I85o, and though known to
Sir Frederick Madden, was never
seen by him until I lent him this
MS., before sending it to Mr Lenox
inAugust 859for~ 188 6s. Itwas
bound by F. Bedford in brown morocco, antique pattern, and prote&ed
in a suitable morocco pull-off case,
and is still one of the pearls of the
Lenox Library.
I




MR JAMES LENOX       o09
I have left no room to speak of
the extraordinary American colledtion
of Mr Ternaux-Compans, he of the
Merino-sheep's head, bought at a
bargain by Mr Rich in 1844, and
mostly distributed by me in 1845 to
Mr Carter Brown and Mr Lenox,
and a few other clients, at prices
that were then fairly remunerative,
but which now seem ridiculously low.
In 848 I bought Washington's Library of about 3,ooo volumes, for
$3,000, to secure about 300 volumes
with the autograph of the ' Father
of his country' on the title-pages,
some rarities for Mr Lenox, and
many tratls andmiscellaneous American books for the British Museum.
Mr Lenox declined the books with
autographs, and there being a great
hue and cry raised in Boston against
my sending them out of the country,
I sold the colle&ion to a parcel of
Bostonians for $5,ooo, but after
passing that old Boston hat round
for two or three months for $50 subscriptions,




nIo    MR JAMES LENOX
scriptions, only $3,250 could be
raised, and therefore, as I had used
a few hundred dollars of the money
advanced to me by the promoters
and was in a tight place, I was compelled to subscribe the rest myself to
make up the amount of the purchase.
I reserved to myself five volumes
with choice autographs, two of which
were sold to Mr Lenox, one for  20
and the other for f5o, the remaining three being presented to the
British Museum,the Bodleian,
and the Royal Library
of Berlin.


XIV




I -


XIV
rhe  Aspinwall, Drake, Crowninshield and Humboldt Libraries.
Tyndale's Pentateuch. The
Juan de la Cosa Map
YEAR or two later,
while in treaty for the
whole of the Aspinwall Library for Mr
Brown, Mr Lenox,
Dr Cogswell, and for the British
Museum, I catalogued the whole colledion, putting an agreed price on
every book, satisfa&tory to Colonel
Aspinwall and myself. But on summing up the total it came to a little
over I,200, some ~8oo less than he
expe&fed; so the Colonel flew off the
bargain and I escaped a lot of foolishness.




I 2   RECOLLECTIONS OF
ishness. Mr Lenox and Mr.Brown
thought my prices for the rarities
they wanted too high, and one of Dr
Cogswell's library committee finding
one of his own trafts priced at halfa-crown, said, what was perhaps quite
true, that the work was over-priced;
that he would present a copy to the
library, but he wanted nothing more
to do with the Aspinwall Colletion
or Mr Stevens's prices. Thus this
wiseacre on the committee of trustees of the Astor Library sat on Dr
Cogswell, and rendered him powerless to complete any part of the purchase. "Twas ever thus,' wrote Dr
Cogswell, 'one committee-man, stiff
in his ignorance, may thwart the best
schemes of an intelligent librarian
who understands his business and
comprehends the wants of the community.'
In 8 5 8 I bought Mr S. G. Drake's
library, and in I859 Mr E. A.
Crowninshield's, each for $Io,ooo,
having in my eye in both cases certain




MR JAMES LENOX        I13
tain choice ' Historical Nuggets' for
Mr Lenox, who was ever ready to
pay good prices for an early choice.
In 8 60 I paid ~4,ooo0for the Humboldt Library, but the war coming
on after I had got the immense bulk
in London, I was crushed by the
weight of it. Dr Cogswell had encouraged me to the venture, by giving me to understand that the trustees of the Astor Library would sele&t at once between ~2,000 and
~3,000 worth, and Mr Lenox had
intimated that he should be glad to
secure as usual certain of the rarities.
On the first gun of Fort Sumter all
these and many other clients shut up
like clam shells, and began to pra6tise
those beautiful virtues of prudence
and economy which prote&ed themselves and at the same time ruined
me.
I ought to have mentioned the wellknown sales of Libri, Payne & Foss,
Pickering, Lord Stewartde Rothesay,
Dr Hawtry, Dun Gardner, Offor,
Q            and




114   RECOLLECTIONS OF
and many others, at which I bought
largely for Mr Lenox. At one of
these sales Mr Lenox sent an order
for Tyndale's Pentateuch 1530, with
a limit of ~5o, or more if I thought
it desirable after inspection. I had
to pay  I 59 for it, which with commission and expenses, cost Mr Lenox
~ 175. The day after the sale Lord
Ashburnham offered me 200 guineas
for the volume, but it was Mr Lenox's. The volume was bound in
morocco with heavy boards, and cost
the purchaser more than three times
its weight in sovereigns. The book
had three interior leaves in facsimile
by the elder Harris, which in my
humble judgment very much de-.preciated its value, though otherwise
the largest, purest and finest copy
known.   Subsequently, at infinite
pains, I had another copy through
my hands, and arranged to supply
the originals of these three leaves for
20, and sent them by post to Mr
Lenox for the purpose of completing
his




MR JAMES LENOX        I15
hisvolume. But he was not of myway
of thinking. The three leaves were
three-eighths of an inch shorter than
his, and therefore as they would not
grow, he returned them to me!
That same copy, with those same
three leaves, would now produce
probably not less than 500 guineas.
A similar copy, wanting the whole
of the Book of Genesis with the
date, was sold by au&tion at Sotheby's
in 1884 for  200o, and is now one
ofthechiefest ornaments of the Astor
Library.
In May 1853 the Walckenaer
sale took place in Paris. I ordered
many books from it for Mr Brown
and Mr Lenox on my own responsibility, they not having received the
catalogue in time. In this sale No
2904 was the large manuscript map
of the world by Juan de la Cosa, executed at Santa Maria in Spain in the
year I 500, rendered famous by Humboldt, altogether then and even now
the most precious cartographical
document




nI6   RECOLLECTIONS OF
document relating to the New World.
Mr Brown turned up in London just
as I was ordering it, but had no appreciative fancy for it. So I determined to go it alone, and sent my intelligent and reliable agent in Paris a
limit of i,ooo francs for it. He replied confidentially that he was aware
of an order in town from a great
foreign public library with a limit considerably exceedingmine,which I took
to be the British Museum. Wishing
very much to secure the prize, I at
once replied requesting him to double
my limit. The next post brought
me another letter that 2,000 francs
was not yet enough, for he was assured
that M.Jomard,ofthe Royal Library,
would outbidme. As time wasgetting
short, and my anxiety to win was increasing, I wrote him the evening before the sale to again double my limit,
if that in his judgment was not sheer
folly. So I left my limit to him anywhere under 4,000 francs. The Queen
of Spain won the chase at 4,020 francs
and




MR JAMES LENOX       I 17
and I had the honour of coming in the
loser by a neck, but with nothing to
pay; and so also Mr Lenox escaped.
The Naval Museum at Madrid (Catalogue No. 553) is said now to hold
this precious geographical document,
worth cartloads of the Portuguese
Cantino map lately brought to light,
with its duplicate Cuba and purely
bogus and conje&ural geography,
based on Portuguese misreadings and
misunderstandings of the exaggerated geographical accounts
of the first and second
voyages of Columbus.


XV




XV
r'he Vermonter dabbleth in Nineveh
Marbles
eN i858 Mr Lenox, at
an expense of $3,000,
presented to the New
York Historical Society a large collection
of Nineveh sculptures, which the
Council of the Society, in gratitude
for the highly valued colleftion, voted
should be named and thenceforward
be known and styled the ' Lenox
Marbles.' My notes and reminiscences of that colle&ion may perhaps
be recorded here. After Mr Layard
and Colonel Rawlinson had completed
their researches, and shipped their
selected discoveries to the British
Museum,




MR JAMES LENOX       II9
Museum, many duplicates were reburied to preserve them from the natives. Mr Williams the American
missionary, made great efforts to have
these valuable duplicates secured for
America, and wrote to Mr Abbot
Lawrence, the United States Minister
in London. This correspondence I
caused to be laid before the Trustees
of the Museum, who promptly replied that early in 852 they had instru&ed Colonel Rawlinson to facilitate others in removing such sculptures as were not required for the
British Museum. Mr Lawrence's
application to the Smithsonian Institution through me, and to the authorities of Washington dire&t, were
permitted to slumber in the mighty
limbo there of such expensive ventures, and nothing was done.
Meanwhile two English merchants,
one a consul, residing at Bagdad or
Mosul, who had been friends of
Layard and Rawlinson during their
excavations, obtained permission to
remove




120   RECOLLECTIONS OF
remove thirteen large slabs, and in
1852 floated them 800 miles down
the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, and
thence shipped them to the Mauritius,
and thence trans-shipped them to
London, where they lay stored in the
East India Docks many months, like
many other speculative adventures,
eating their heads off. Some changes
having occurred in the plans or prospeds of the proprietors, their London
agent came to me with a note of introdu&tion from Barings, with a view
of transferring their hungry charge
to the Smithsonian Institution or to
Uncle Samuel. But neither Professor
Henry nor my Uncle made any sign
or sent any ship for them. Finally,
a little later, when the news of the
unfortunate loss of the vessel containing the entire excavations of the
French reached this country, I at once,
after consulting my friends Dr Birch
and Mr Vaux of the British Museum
as to their genuineness and archwaological value, determined to purchase
the




MR JAMES LENOX       121
the whole colledfion on my own account. They were offered to me, it
I would pay all the bills of charges
on them from Mosul to the East India
Docks, including the dock charges
and storage, in all amounting to only
~ 300, receiving them then and there
accoutred as they were. In Odtober
I 853 I shipped the whole in their
original bulky log fastenings by the
good ship C Nabob' dire&t to Boston,
consigning them, with insurance and
freight paid to destination, to Messrs
Hubbard Brothers.
With head full of Layard's books,
I had golden dreams about these
Nineveh sculptures, 3,000 years old,
landing at Boston only 245 years
after John Winthrop; and about
their reception at the Hub of the
universe.  The first reality I experienced when fully awake was that
the expenses were running up very
fast, and that I was compelled to
disregard the ' ancient art' and pay
for the sculptured marbles, in their
R          bulky




122   RECOLLECTIONS OF
bulky protedtions, as goods of 30
tons measurement, though the adtual
weight was only about 17 tons.
They consisted of 13 slabs, about a
foot thick, with sculptures in basrelief, generally about 7j feet high,
and averaging 6 feet in width, the
whole, ranged side by side, measuring 72 feet 2 inches. I wrote fully
to Mr Edward Everett, Mr George
Sumner, Mr George Livermore and
others about the consignment, and
at the request of Mr Joshua Bates
I wrote out a full statement, with
vouchers from men in the British
Museum as to their value and genuine chara6ter, which documents Mr
Bates sent to Mr George Ticknor,
President of the Trustees of the Free
Public Library.
At first all wrote encouragingly,
and the ' ancients' were favourably
greeted on their being landed and
stored on Long Wharf. Eventually,
after some months, with fresh expenses for storage, the public-spirited
citizens




MR JAMES LENOX       123
citizens had them removed to the
Boston Atheneum at their own cost,
and set up for profitable exhibition.
Here they stood many more weary
months, like Barnum's wax figures,
until they and I were tired.
Finally in i8S8, when I was in
New York, I related the history of
my patriotic adventure in the Nineveh fine arts line, to my old and
valued friend Mr George H. Moore,
of the New York Historical Society.
He at once appreciated the situation
in all its bearings, and with an enthusiasm akin to that of the Green
Mountain Boy who captured them in
the East India Docks, said, 'By
thunder, Henry, wouldn't it be a
mighty fine thing to transfer them to
the ground floor room in our Historical Society! Wha'll you take
for the lot, delivered free on the
railway trucks in Boston?' 'Do you
mean it, George?' 'Yes, honour
bright.' 'Well,' said I, 'they have
cost me during the last five years
well




124   RECOLLECTIONS OF
well nigh $3,000, and though earning nothing now, they are costing me
nothing where they are, excepting the
interest on the outlay. You may
now have them, as I had them, by
paying the bills. The Athenaeum
has had two annual exhibitions out
of them, and as they stand there subjeet to my order, I should have no
hesitation in ordering them away at
once in case the Bostonians are not
disposed to complete the purchase
without further delay.'
George was in earnest, and I sent
a confidential friend, well posted in
such matters, to inquire into the fa&s,
and ascertain if the authorities were
disposed to buy the lot. If so, they
of course had the pre-emption, otherwise the 'goods' would be speedily
removed to be sold elsewhere. The
report was that there was little inclination in the parties interested in
Boston to purchase, and ' that Mr
Stevens of course could remove his
"Nineveh Marbles" whenever he
pleased,




MR JAMES LENOX        125
pleased, and he would be entitled to
our thanks for lending them to us
for so long a time.' All appeared perfe&ly fair, serene and friendly; but
one high-minded Beacon Streeter, a
little more frank than the others,
obligingly communicated to my
friend, not knowing that he was also
my agent, the important fa&t c that
it was wholly unnecessary for us to
buy those ponderous sculptures, for
they will cost Mr Stevens as much
as they are worth to remove them to
another town.' On further inquiry
he found that this Fabian policy of
masterly ina6ivity pervaded all the
interested brain-carriersofthe modern
Athens.
After conning over this intelligence and report together, George
said, C Well, Henry, this is Boston
all over, and another piece of your
Washington Autograph-Book business a few years ago. If you wish
the thing to go through you will
have to subscribe for the lion's share
of




126   RECOLLECTIONS OF
of the stock yourself. '" Three thousand ducats-'tis a good round sum,"
but we'll remove our neighbour's
Nineveh marble landmarks to New
York. Come and see me to-morrow,
after I have seen Mr Lenox and told
him the story.' The next day when
we met George said, ' Well Henry,
it is o.k.; let us go on to Boston
and see those Sennacherib men with
their stone carpet-bags. Mr Lenox
says that if I find all things corre&t
he will give us a cheque for $3,00ooo
as soon as the goods reach New York
to my satisfa6ion.' So the business
was accomplished in a few days, and
so the 'Stevens marbles' became the
' Lenox marbles,' and at last found
a permanent resting-place; and thus
it was that I recouped my money,
and exercised my patience in performing another patriotic deed for a
naughty New World. The next
time I saw Mr Lenox I congratulated
him on his successful play at marbles,
and hoped he would be luckier than
I




MR JAMES LENOX         127
I had been with those men and memorials of old. He replied that the
venture formed a part of his ' Bible
Colleftion,' but the Historical Society had to pasture them.


XVI






XVI
Cromwell's Letter to John Cotton. G.
M.B.'sfirst interview with Mr Lenox.
The Coverdale Map of I 574. The
1611 unique Testament in i 2~.
La Carta universale delle
terrafirme' of I 534
AM   obliged to omit
the story of the curious
and most valuable autographletterof Washington to his London
tailor, in which he described minutely
the dimensions and proportions of his
figure, even to the number of inches
in his waist, the length of his legs and
arms, as well as the circumference of
his chest,knees and thighs; which letter I procured and sent to Mr Lenox
in




MR JAMES LENOX        129
in April 1852 for the very moderate
sum of three guineas. What would
it bring now? Nor is there room to
just more than mention the particulars of a long autograph letter of
Oliver Cromwell to John Cotton of
Boston in N.E., dated Odober 2d
651, which I procured and induced
him to purchase foro40 in February
1854. Oliver addressed his letter
' For my esteemed freind, Mr Cotton, Pastor to the church att Boston in New England, theise,' and begins ' Worthye Sr. and my Christian
freind, I received yours a few dayes
sithence, it was welcom to mee, because signed by you, whome I loue
and Honour in the Lord but more to
see some of the same grounds of our
Aftinges Stirringe in you, that haue
in vs, to qviet vs to our worke, and
support vs therein, wch hath had
greatest difficultye in our engagement
in Scotland, by reason wee haue had
to doe wth some, whoe were (I verily
thinke) Godly, but thorough weake,
s          nesse,




130   RECOLLECTIONS OF
nesse, and the subtiltye of Sathan inuolved in interests against the Lord,
and his people... [ending] I tooke
this libertye from businesse to salute
you thus in a word, trulye I am ready
to serue you and the rest of our
brethren, and the churches w' you.
I am a poore weake creature, not
worthye the name of a worme, yett
accepted to serve the Lord and his
people, indeed my deare freind betweene you and mee you knowe not
mee, my weaknessees, my inordinate
passions, my vngratefullnesse, and
euery way vnfitness to my worke,
yett, yett the Lord whoe will haue
mercye on whom He will, does as
you see. Pray for mee, salute all
Christian freinds though vnknown,
I rest Your affectionate freind to
serve you 0. CROMWELL.' Mr Lenox printed this letter as No. 4
of his 'Curiosities of "American"
Literature.'
A paragraph might be made respedting our first interview in New
York




MR JAMES LENOX        13I
York in the late autumn of 1847,
when we saw each other for the first
time after more than two years of
adtive correspondence, and when by
comparing notes, we were both very
much mistaken in the portraits our
fancies had painted of each other.
On arriving at the Astor House I
dropped Mr Lenox a line to say I
was in town, and would be glad to
see him at any time and place most
convenient to himself. By return of
boy, the answer came, ' To-morrow
morning at nine o'clock at my house.'
During the day all my gossiping and
bookish friends greeted me cordially,
and said, ' Now we shall hear and
know something of Mr Lenox, his
library and new house.'
The next morning, on the stroke
of nine, I mounted the broad stone
steps and rang the bell. A maiden
servant opened the door on the chain
six or eight inches, and asked, ' Are
you Mr Stevens?'   'Yes.' 'Mr
Lenox is in his office below; you can
enter




132   RECOLLECTIONS OF
enter by the door under the steps.'
Down I went and again rang a bell,
when Mr Lenox himself unlocked a
door and an iron gate and gave me
a warm welcome. We talked and
rambled about for four hours and
made each other's personal acquaintance pretty fast, while I saw him, his
library, gallery and a room or two
besides the hall, and many closed
doors. My impression of him was
altogether favourable, but by his manner, more than by anything he said,
I came to the conclusion that the
treasures of his mind, as a matter of
habit, like his front door, always ' had
the chain up.' He was frank, open
and serene to me, but without his
saying it in so many words I came to
the conclusion that my future policy
was to ' put up my chain' also so far
as any personal gossip of and about
him was concerned.
Thenceforth Mr Lenox was always
allowed to have his own way, without any didtation or strong argument
from




MR JAMES LENOX        -33
from me. He had a mind of his own
and a fortune to back it. My gossiping friends the next day and often
afterwards sat on me in Bartlett and
Welford's store, where they used most
to congregate, but they were welcome
to all the interior news they extraded.
I had already learned to put up my
Lenox chain. Mr Lenox and I stood
on a level, as far as I could see, he a
buyer and I a seller; he colleting to
shelve, I colleding to disperse-one's
calling necessary to the other's. If
there were any real difference of rank,
it is not likely either of us ever saw
or thought of it. We often saw each
other for the next eighteen months,
but never except by appointment.
This mutual courtesy and equality
always continued between us,though
he bought while I sold.
Some years later he said to me,
'As you seem to find everything you
want sooneror later,I wish you would
find me a copy of the Coverdale
woodcut map of the Holy Land with
the




134   RECOLLECTIONS OF
the date 1574, from the identical
block with that of the 1535 Bible,
having only the date and certain inscriptions altered.'  I will try,' was
my reply. Two or three weeks later,
whiletravellingup Connecticut River,
I stopped a day or two at Charlestown, New Hampshire, and calling
on Mr Silvester there, I saw a very
imperfedt copy of the folio Bishops'
Bible of 1574 with this very map,
fine and perfeft. By a little negotiation, after the true Yankee style,
I became possessed of the volume,
and took it back to Mr Lenox in
triumph. ' I never!' said he; and
he paid me fifty dollars for the map.
I have never since been able to procure another copy.
During the war Mr Lenox suspended generally his ardent foraging
for rare books, and only occasionally
had an intermittent attack of his old
bibliographical fever. Early in 866,
after I had sent him some extraordinary historical nuggets that he could
not




MR JAMES LENOX        135
not resist buying, he wrote me on
Shakespeare's birth and death day,
April 23, a long letter, in which was
contained this announcement: Your
best plan, as far as I am concerned,
will be to let me have a memorandum beforehand of what you suppose
I may take, and I will let you know
immediately what you shall forward
to me. In faat, unless it be some
volume like the Vesputius, or De
Bry, or Hulsius, or Jesuit Relation,
I have almost made up my mind to
stop purchasing.' Such hints between
1865 and 1875 I not unfrequently
had from him in his numerous letters on bibliographical subjefts, while
sometimes an amusing commentary
on these incipient resolutions was
found in a postscript, in which he
inquired anxiously for some nugget
that he had passed or missed when
under his eye, but now desired me to
re-offer or procure for him.
There were some books which Mr
Lenox bought with reludtance,being,
he




136   RECOLLECTIONS OF
he thought, ' too dear,' but which he
soon learned to appreciate and value
as historical pearls of great price.
Among these was the Barker, London 6 i I, I 2~ long-line, small black
letter first edition of the New Testament of the i 611 version, then considered unique, as described by Lea
Wilson under his No. 57, and in
Pickering's au&dion catalogue, part 2
No. 3534, in I854. The cost to
him including my commission, was
~37 2s. 6d., besides freight, insurance
and the Customs duty. That precious little volume, after forty years'
bibliographical research by Bible students and collectors, still remains
unique. Were it now to come into the
market again, how it would open the
eyes of bibliographers, and empty the
pockets of some lucky colle&or! No
historian has as yet told us why that
pocket edition was printed by Robert
Barker, the King's printer, and probably never published. Why and for
what reason was it suppressed?
Another




MR JAMES LENOX        137
Another book, sent him in April
852, about which he hesitated on
account of the price of eighteen
guineas but afterwards held as priceless, was c Libro primo, secondo &
ultimo,' by Peter Martyr, Oviedo
and Xeres, edited by Ramusio, and
printed at Venice in 1534, with the
usual map of ' Spagnvola,' and the
large and unique map entitled ' La
carta universale della terra firme.'
This latter, the largest and perhaps
the most important of the early woodcut maps of the New World, has to
this day remained unique. Mr Panizzi tried very hard to induce me to
let him have this map for the British
Museum, and offered me for it my
price for the book and map; but I
told him that it had been reported
to Mr Lenox, but if declined the
Museum should have it. At Mr
Panizzi's suggestion, I employed the
elder John Harris to make a careful
fac-simile tracing of it for me, which
was thrown on to stone, and some
Tr         copies




138    MR JAMES LENOX
copies published by me. See 'Nuggets,' No. I808, and my 'Geographical Notes' for a reduced copy of
it. No second copy of the original,
as far as I can learn, has as yet been
brought to light. The fac-simile has
erroneously been quoted as Mr Harris's publication. I have several
copies still on hand.


XVII




XVII
7The facsimile leaves in the quarto
Hariot. The true history of the' HuntLenox Globe.' 7ohn White's Virginia
Drawings. Ludd's ' Speculi
Orbis Descriptio'
AR LENOX was principled against raffles,
wagers, lotteries and
games of chance generally, but I once led
him into a sort of bet in this way, by
which I won from him ~4. I had
acquired a fair copy of that gem of
rare books, the quarto edition of
' Hariot's briefe and true report of
the new found land of Virginea, London, Feb. 158 8,' wanting four leaves
in the body of the book. These I
had




140   RECOLLECTIONS OF
had very skilfully traced by Harris,
transferred to stone, printed off ort
old paper of a perfeft match, the
book and these leaves sized and coloured alike, and bound in morocco
by Bedford. The volume was then
sent to Mr Lenox to be examined by
him de visu, the price to be ~2 5; but
if he could dete& the four fac-simile
leaves, and would point them out to
me without error, the price was to be
reduced to  21. By the first post
after the book was received he remitted me the twenty guineas, with
a list of the fac-similes. But on my
informing him that two of his facsimiles were originals, he immediately remitted the four pounds and
acknowledged his defeat.
In I870, while residing at the
' Clarendon' in New York, I dined
one evening with Mr R. M. Hunt,
the archite&t of the Lenox Library,
a son of my father's old friend Jonathan Hunt, who represented the State
of Vermont in Congress from i 827
to




MR JAMES LENOX       141
to  832. While talking on library
conveniences and plans, I chanced to
notice a small copper globe, a child's
plaything, rolling about the floor. On
inquiry, I was told that he picked it
up in some town in France for a
song, and now, as it opened at the
equator and was hollow, the children
had appropriated it for their amusement. I saw at once by its outlines
that it was probably older than any
other globe known, except Martin
Behaim's at Nurnberg, and perhaps
the Leon globe, and told Mr Hunt
my opinion of its geography, requesting him to take great care of it, for
it would some day make a noise in
the geographical world.  Subsequently I borrowed it for two or three
months, studied it, took it to Washington, exhibited it to Dr Hilgard
and others at the Coast Survey Office,
and employed one of the draughtsmen there to projet it in a twohemisphere map, with a diameter of
the original, about five and a half
inches,




142   RECOLLECTIONS OF
inches, at a cost to me of $20. On
returning to New York I delivered
it into the hands of Mr Hunt, telling
him that it was unquestionably as
early as I 5 IO and perhaps I 505, and
was in historical and geographical
interest second to hardly any other
globe, small as it was; and concluded
by recommending him, when he and
his children had done playing with
it, to present it to the Lenox Library,
the plans of which he was then engaged upon. I also told Mr Lenox
of it and its value, and recommended
him to keep his eye upon it, and secure it if possible for preservation in
his library. My pains and powder
were not thrown away. Not long
after Mr Hunt presented it to the library, and from that time it has been
known and styled as the C HuntLenox Globe.' On my return to
London I showed my drawing of it
to my friend Mr C. H. Coote, of the
map department of the British Museum, and lent it to him for the reduced




MR JAMES LENOX        143
duced fac-simile in his article on
GLOBES in the new edition of the
'Encyclopaedia Britannica' Thus the
'Hunt-Lenox Globe' won its geographical niche in literature as well
as in ' Narrative History.'
Notwithstanding all these rarities
that Mr Lenox by his enterprise and
liberality secured for his library, he
sometimes missed his opportunities,
and failed to shoot the folly as it rose.
Among the numerous' pearls of great
price' that passed through my hands,
and he permitted to slip through his
fingers, may be mentioned the following:-I. Captain John White's 73
original water-colour drawings in
58 5-86,while ating with Hariot in
Raleigh's first expedition, representing the men, women, beasts, birds,
fish, plants, etc., of Virginia, 23 of
which had been engraved by De Bry
in his Part I. Frankfort 15 90. These
drawings, showing the English origin
of De Bry's famous colle6tion, were
first offered to Mr Lenox, and on
being




144   RECOLLECTIONS OF
being declined, were sold to the
British Museum for ~235, and by
Mr Panizzi placed in the Grenville
Library, where they are esteemed of
inestimable artistic and historical
value. Mr Lenoxwrote me the 23rd
April 1866:-' I think you have
made a good sale of your White's
drawings to the Museum. I shall be
glad to see your report to the trustees
on the subjeft. I hope you will not
forget it.'
2. Walter Ludd's 'Speculi Orbis
descriptio,' printed at St Die in 508,
a small folio traft of a few leaves,
expensively bound in red morocco by
Bedford, a sort of key to the Vespucci
books and the Cosmographie Introdutio, was another unknown nugget
which I took infinite pains to study
and place in America. Mr Lenox
and all my other correspondents there
declined it at ten guineas. So after
having offered it also to the British
Museum with like success, I threw it
into au&tion at Sotheby's, where it
was




MR JAMES LENOX        145
was bought for the Museum for
8 8s, I having called Mr Winter
Jones's particular attention to it and
the explanatory note in the auCtion
catalogue, thus costing with commission ~9 4s 9d. The day after its
delivery at the Museum, I called Mr
Major's attention to it, and he made
a good use of the little work in his
forthcoming Prince Henry, which
notice immediately raised my goose
to a swan. On writing again to Mr
Lenox respecting its progress, and
regretting his oversight, he replied,
IstJuly 867: ' Your" Speculi Orbis
Descriptio " is of value merely as a
reference to sustain the attempt to
deprive Hylacomylas of his labour.'
This was in a long letter respecting
M. D'Avezac and the Cosmographiae
Introdu&tio. The fadt appears to
have been that Mr Lenox so strongly
espoused Humboldt's and D'Avezac's somewhat crude notions about
Hylacomylas or Waldseemuler, that
he could not abide the evidence that
u         perhaps




146    MR JAMES LENOX
perhaps Philesius or Matthias Ringmann, instead of Waldseemuler, was
after all the prime moving spirit
among that famous geographical fraternity at St. Die, who wrote up Vespucci at the expense of Columbus,
and gave the name America to the
New World. Ludd's Speculum
still remains an historical
gem of the first
water.


XVIII




XVIII
Mr Lenox passes over several important ' Nuggets,' including the colleRtion
of 275 Mathers and Stuart's Portrait of Washington
OME months before
going to America in
i 868, I had sent on
inspe&tion to Mr Lenox a score or two of
very rare books which I imagined
would strongly attra&t his attention,
notwithstanding his intermittent notices of his intention to cease purchasing. To my great surprise, he
sele6ted several that I cared very
little about and declined those that
I, as caterer and bibliographer, was
sweetest upon. Among these was
a




148   RECOLLECTIONS OF
a little book of seven pages, beautifully bound in Pratt's best red morocco, with panelled sides and rich
inside tooled borders. It was entitled 'A Declaration of former
Passages and Proceedings betwixt
the English and the Narrowgansets,
with their Confederates, &c. Published by order of the Commissioners
of the United Colonies. At Boston
the II of the sixth month, 1645.'
[Printed by Stephen Daye, Cambridge, N.E. 1645. 4~.1 It was
signed 'Jo: Winthrop, President.
In the name of all the Commisioners.
This little book was so rare and
historically important that before
parting with it I had it carefully transcribed, lest the hungry sea should
swallow it, and it be lost sight of
for ever. All the rejeted, including
this precious little nugget, priced at
ten guineas or $50, together with
about a hundred other rare books,
big and little, all pertaining to what
Mr Brown always called the 'great
subje&,'




MR JAMES LENOX        149
subjet,' were packed in a very large
box and sent by my agent, with a
new invoice, to Providence, for the
approval and seleftion of Mr Brown.
He was much pleased with the consignment, and selefted a large part
of the books; but like Mr Lenox,.he passed the ' Narrowgansets,'
though a Rhode Island book, alleging
that the price was too dear. The
box was repacked and stored away
subje&t to my orders.
Some months after, being in Hartford one day gossiping with my old
friend George Brinley about the uncertainty of book coledtors' fancies,
and telling him that I could never
count on my correspondents' likes
and dislikes; that in London I was
choked up with nuggets that had
been declined by all my chief customers as too dear or of not sufficient
interest, and yet were, in my own
judgment, every way as attradtive to
me as the majority of those they had
seleaed, and I instanced as cases in
point




IO50   RECOLLECTIONS OF
point my unique colleftion of above
275 ' Mathers' that had been dedclined by the Trustees of the British
Museum, Mr Lenox and Mr Brown,
and this ' Narrowganset' book.
' What,' said he, do you mean to
say that you have a little book such
as you describe, signed by John
Winthrop and printed at Cambridge
by Stephen Daye in 1645, that has
been declined at ten guineas by both
of those gentlemen after having been
sent to them on inspection?' ' It is
even so,' I replied; ' but I am used
to it, as the smoke said to account
for its going up a crooked chimney.
It is no new thing with me, and I do
not suppose that it argues anything
more against their intelligence than
it does against my foolishness. We
think differently and have a right to.
I sometimes deem my stock of nuggets, that has been picked over by
the "council often," representing my
clients in Europe and America, as
rather purified than depleted by their
seletions.




MR JAMES LENOX        151
selef&ions. If I offer a hundred of
my nuggets to Mr Brown, Mr Lenox or the British Museum, and one
half is taken, I do not consider that
the rest is depreciated in value because the consignment has been
"picked over."  Often the plums
settling at the bottom are left.'
'Well,' he asked, 'may I have
the Narrowgansets at the same price?'
' Yes.' ' Then I'll have it; but now
comes the rub. How can we get at
it without arousing Mr Brown's or
Mr Bartlett's attention? If it is inquired for separately, especially for
me, and they see it again, they will be
sure to keep it.' It was then arranged
that the ' Express' should call on Mr
Brown in Providence, and without
naming its destination, should bring
the big box with its entire contents,
at Mr Brinley's expense, overland to
Hartford. In this manner Mr Brinley scored a double, and was bibliographically happy. After his death,
eight or nine years later, this little
book




152    RECOLLECTIONS OF
' book, fully described by Dr Trumbull
under lot 754, was sold by auftion in
New York, in the Brinley sale part I,
in March I878, for $2I8, considerably more than four times my price.
That goose is now a swan.
The larger portion of my ' Mather
Colle&tion' above alluded to had
already found a resting-place in Mr
Brinley's library. It was the result
of many years ofa aive book-hunting.
The books were generally in excellent
order, and were mostly bound by
Bedford and Pratt in their best style
in morocco or calf, After the colleItion had been offered and declined
by both Mr Lenox and Mr Brown,
it was offered entire (barritg the
duplicates) to the British Museum
about 1862 at the same prices. Mr
W. B, Rye, during Mr Winter Jones's
holiday absence, reported on the colletion to the Trustees, recommending the purchase if Mr Stevens felt disposed to make a discount of one-third.
The Trustees acceded to this proposal,
and




MR JAMES LENOX        153
and I was so informed, but instead of
accepting it, the entire colle&ion was
withdrawn.
It had been so long on my hands,
and this class of books was increasing
so much in value, that I felt justified
in adding twenty-five per cent to my
prices and sending the whole colleftion to Mr Brinley. He promptly
jumped at the lot, except a few that
he possessed already in as goodcopies.
These ' Mathers' constituted about
two-thirds of the extraordinary Brinley colledtion sold in March 1878,
for prices generally ranging from two
to five times the prices he paid me
some ten years earlier. It was a great
gratification to me to find that in
many instances both Mr Lenox and
Mr Brown were the winners of these
little nuggets that they had years before missed the opportunity of securing. It patted my poor judgment
on the back, though perhaps a little
late.
In books I found myself more of
x             an




154   RECOLLECTIONS OF
an authority than in painting, sculpture, antiquities, etc. Early in I 847
I had an opportunity to secure what
I believed to be a genuine full-length
portrait of Washington by Stuart.
I bought it, and took it to Boston
with me the following November.
It was exhibited, written about and
talked about, but everybody discredited it; why I could not tell.
My price was $I,ooo, but no body
and no institution would buy it. Mr
Lenox had nibbled at it and made
inquiries about it through some one
in Boston, but finally declined it.
One day in the autumn of 1848,
while gossiping with him, he inquired
if I had sold my Stuart's Washington.
I said ' No, nor can I account for its
not going off at my reasonable price.
Will you tell me frankly the reason
you do not take it?' ' I do not mind
telling you,' said he, 'if you will
not be angry. It is because it isyours,
and you cannot give its pedigree.
You do not profess to be a connoisseur




MR JAMES LENOX       I5;
seur in portraits, and your price is
too low for a genuine Stuart.' ' I
thought as much,' I replied. ' I am
not angry, but only pity those who
hang their art judgments on so slight
a peg, and even that not their own.'
Mr Lenox subsequently bought
a Stuart like mine, but with a pedigree, and mine, after eighteen months
exile in its own land, found its way
back to London, where it occupied
for a few months my apartments at
Morley's. I next offered it as it stood
to Mr Russell Sturgis for i o50, resolving to dabble no more in fine arts
that required so much ' faith' in their
owner, and ' push' in the seller. Mr
Sturgis said he would gladly have it,
if our friend Mr C. R. Leslie, R.A.,
who was well up in Stuart's work,
would examine it and give his opinion
that it was a genuine Stuart and all
right. Accordingly Mr Leslie came
and carefully examined the portrait,
and not only pronounced it a good
portrait but a good Stuart, and told
me




156    MR JAMES LENOX
me unhesitatingly that he should by
all means recommend Mr Sturgis to
secure it at any reasonable price. I
told him that it had become an elephant on my hands, and that being
only too glad to get rid of it, I had
offered it forf 50 o, and then told him
my fine art experiences. c My dear
sir,' said he sympathetically, C had
you asked 5~00 for it you would no
doubt have sold it readily.  Colleftors are suspicious of low prices.'
The pifture was at once transferred
to the right place where it is now
fully and properly appreciated.


XIX




XIX


Mr Lenox declines the Large Paper
Dedication copy of Smith's Virginia,
also Gosnold's Voyage and Weymouth's
Voyage, but afterwards buys them
at the Brinley Sale
R LENOX was very
much interested in
the bibliography of
Captain John Smith's
History of Virginia,
and spent much time and a great deal
of money in running out its history
and variations, especially in the maps
and plates. As early as 852 we had
a brisk correspondence for many
months, and I procured for him a
great many variations of the maps,
and informed him of others in the
libraries




158   RECOLLECTIONS OF
libraries of London, Oxford and
Cambridge. The results of this correspondence were worked up by him
in a paper entitled ' Curiosities of
American Literature. No I. Smith's
General History of Virginia, New
England and the Summer Islands,'
which appeared in Norton's Literary
Register in 1853 or 1854, signed L.
In this he aimed at giving an account
of all the mechanical features of the
volume, together with all the known
editions or variations of the maps,
and a brief enumeration of the other
works by Captain Smith: altogether,
for a first attempt, a most valuable
contribution to the bibliography of
American History. A few copies
were printed separately on blue writing paper. Eight distin6t issues of
the map of New England were described.
No 2 of the ' Curiosities ' was a
reprint of No I, greatly enlarged,
modified, corre&ed and improved,
mostly based on the friendly criticisms




MR JAMES LENOX         159
cisms and help of Dr Charles Deane.
Both of these papers Mr Lenox subsequently sent to me with his manuscript additions and corredtions, soliciting further criticism. I was able
to send him several other items of
interest generally, and particularly to
raise the number of issues of the New
England map to eleven.
Here the matter rested for several
years, until the ist of March i 873,
when I wrote him:-' One should
never despair. All rare books turn
up sooner or later in London. Some
twenty-five years ago you ordered or
inquired about a large paper copy of
Smith's History of Virginia. I offered, i oo for Colonel Aspinwall's copy
[then for sale], though broken in the
binding, and two or three of the maps
were supplied from a small paper
copy.... That copy I had put in
order by Bedford for the Colonel,
and it is now the gem of Mr Barlow's
colledtion. BUT, a few days ago, THE
copy turned up in the library of
a




160    RECOLLECTIONS OF
a clergyman in Yorkshire, lately deceased, the Rev Mr Lowe, brother
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It is not only large paper, but is in
the original binding in dark green
morocco, very richly tooled all over,
and in excellent preservation. It is
the Dedication copy, and no doubt
belonged to the Duchess of Richmond
and Lenox. The Richmond and
Lenox arms, very large and elaborate,
with her quarterings, are on the side.
The binding alone is,I think, the finest
I ever saw of Charles I's time, and
would readily bring  o100 without
the book. I am having it put in a
morocco case, and shall next week
send it out to [my agents] Messrs
Austin, Baldwin & Co. Bankers, 70
Broadway.... I shall instru&
them to give you the first offer, and
if you decline it they are to send it at
once to Mr Brinley. The price of
the Smith is 2 50 guineas, a large sum
for a Smith; but when you see the
book I trust you will not think-or
rather




MR JAMES LENOX       I6i
rather will think it not best to pass
it.'
I had three weeks before, on the 8th
of February, written to Mr Brinley,
when sending him the Gutenberg
Bible of I450-55, and added this:'The greatest bibliographical rarity
that ever crossed the Atlantic ocean
I shall send to Mr Lenox next week,
but as he is only a millionaire and has
stopped buying, he may not keep it
at my price. In that case I shall dire&
Baldwin & Co to send it for your inspe&tion. I trust your chances are
small. I had the order from Mr
Lenox twenty years ago, and am only
now able to execute it; but I am
more than rewarded for waiting,
though the price of the book has gone
up,while money has gone down. The
book is Smith's History of Virginia
on large paper, in the finest possible
condition, bound at the time, 1624,
in rich morocco tooled all over, with
the arms of Charles on one cover and
those of the Duchess of Richmond
y             and




162   RECOLLECTIONS OF
and Lenox on the other. In short,
it is the Dedication copy to the
Duchess, her own copy, in the most
sumptuous binding, early English, I
ever saw. Any book, no matter what,
in such early English binding, would
readily bring ioo guineas, but when
that book is Smith's Virginia with all
this story attached to it, and only five
other large paper copies being known,
and four of them in public libraries,
what must I ask for this, THE COPY
of all others-a show book for ever,
I think-but you must wait.'
Again on the 22nd of March, in
a letter to Mr Brinley, I added:' Mr Lenox writes me for the twentyfifth time that he no longer buys
books, and in his last letter has ordered nothing. So it is possible he may
hold to this resolution until he has
had time to pass the SMITH. If he
does pass it, he is more of a...
than I ever took him for. However,
you come in for the reversion of it if
he does.' The book left Liverpool by
the




MR JAMES LENOX        163
the Cunard steamer March 5, only
four days before the ill-fated'Atlantic'
sailed on her last voyage. On the 26th
April I wrote:-' Baldwin of New
York called on me this morning, and
gave me the first information I had
received respe&ting the Smith's Virginia. He said Mr Lenox called
on him just before he left and told
him that he had decided not to be
tempted to buy any more books at
present, and declined to trust his eyes
to see it... I am not surprised at
Mr Lenox passing the book judging
from his recent letters, especially as
he did not trust himself to see it.
but his love of books is so big that
he has to treat his good resolutions
every little while and indulge.'
So the Smith became Mr Brinley's
at about $1,275, but after his death
it became eventually Mr Lenox's, by
purchase at the Brinley sale in March
1878, Part I, No 364 at $,8o0, or
above 40 per cent advance on my
price. In 1884 a similar copy, in
the




I64   RECOLLECTIONS OF
the last Hamilton sale, wanting the
large map of Virginia, brought L6os,
or about $3,000, which has also I
understand found its way to New
York, making three large paper copies
in that city. The five copies in England known to me are the Grenville,
Cambridge University Library,Lambeth Palace, Eton College and Mr
Christie-Miller's. All this is I know
mere bibliographical gossip interestingonly to those far advanced in bookhunting, but it is for such these trivial
matters are written out. On my congratulating Mr Lenox on his recovery
from his non-purchasing resolutions,
and his courage in so far topping
my prices, he merely remarked that
if I added simple interest for the five
years to my price I would see that he
had not paid anything more by waiting. To this I rejoined that I always
supposed that the pleasure a millionaire derived from book hunting more
than paid the interest on his outlay.
Notwithstanding Mr Lenox's virtuous




MR JAMES LENOX        I65
tuous abnegation as to purchasing
any more nuggets, I kept constantly
supplying him with dainties, though
more and more rarely. Sometimes
however in a letter positively declining any longer to be tempted he
would add a postscript inquiring after
some lost lamb that 1 had offered him
months before, and asking me if still
on hand to send it to him. So I never
felt quite disposed to cease offering
him the choicer historical nuggets.
Accordingly in the spring of 1874,
having come into possession of fine
large copies of Gosnold's Voyage to
New England in I602 by Brereton,
and Waymouth'sVoyage in I60o by
Rosier, I ventured to offer them to
him as the 'Verie two eyes of New
England History' for 250 guineas,
but he let them also pass into Mr
Brinley's hands. But at the Brinley
sale he thought better of it and bought
the two, March I I 878, for $ i,6oo,
or nearly thirty per cent extra for
waiting. See a full description of
them




i66    MR JAMES LENOX
them in Brinley's sale, Part I, No
280. Mr Lenox was not however
so lucky as to be able so easily for
an advance to recover all the historical gems he had let slip through his
fingers through a pardonable lack
of prompt bibliographical appreciation and courage.


XX






xx
9he Vermonter burks a knockout. Mr
Lenox declines more important
' Nuggets'
X        BOUT 1852 my old
Ai/         friend William Pick1 s^!    ering, one Saturday
/\Q>&) afternoon, showed me.        a catalogue he had just
received of Lord Mountnorris's Library to be sold at Arley Castle the
following Tuesday, and intimated
that we might perhaps indulge ourselves in some rare sport in burking
a proje&ed knockout among the London booksellers, of which he had got
wind. This suited my complexion,
but it was necessary for us to know
all about the books and their condition




i68   RECOLLECTIONS OF
tion, and it was impossible for him to
get away from town just then; so it
was arranged that I was to see Messrs
Farebrother & Co. the audioneers,
and obtain an order from them to examine the books on Sunday in time
to set our traps for Tuesday.
Accordingly with the necessary
order in pocket I telegraphed to a
jobmaster in Birmingham to have a
man and dogcart meet me at the
station there on the arrival of the
midnight train to take me over to
Arley Castle some dozen miles. It
was a fearfully rainy night, but we
reached the little inn near the Castle
before dawn, after a bibliographical
steeplechase that ought to be celebrated in the annals of book-hunting.
The next morning early, after a two
hours' sleep and an hour's breakfast,
I tried in vain as a casual to gain admission to the Library with proper
assistants, until finally I produced my
order with a sovereign wrapped in it.
These brought two caretakers up
smiling




MR JAMES LENOX       i69
smiling and we went not exadtly to
(work' but to bibliographical devotion.
During the dayI saweverybook and
every parcel, both printed and manuscript, and entered in my catalogue
a rough estimate of the value of every
lot. Before the sun set I set out for
London by the Great Western route
and was able to join Mr Pickering
Monday morning with all the necessary information cut and dried for
our purposes. We retired and went
thoroughly through the numbers, fixing a low limit on every lot that we
did not want, and a higher one on
those lots we desired to secure. Mr
Craven, Mr Pickering's accountant,
was then called in and instru&ed.
He left for Arley that night fully
equipped and primed for battle. He
was to procure, if possible, about
a hundred lots. If the combined
trade seemed disposed to let him have
these lots at reasonable prices he was
to bid on no others, but if they ' ran '
z           him,




70   RECOLLECTIONS OF
him, he was then without any bargain
or compromise to bid on every lot
up to a limit of about two-thirds of
its market value which was marked
in cypher in his catalogue. On his
declining to join them the Philistines
began to run him hard, but in every
case he won his lots though at a high
cost. He then began to play at their
game and bid on every lot, but let
them have all he was not told to secure. This spoiled their beautiful
knockout, so that their dividend
among above twenty hardly paid for
their grog.
Our bill was large and on the whole
not at extravagant prices. Among
the books were many rarities for Mr
Lenox. I took nearly the whole of
Mr Pickering, allowing him a commission of ten per cent. Among the
manuscripts which I secured were
three which gave me infinite satisfaction, but I failed utterly for the next
year or two to find any one else to
appreciate them. They were, ist,
the




MR JAMES LENOX       171
the original autograph manuscript,
entitled' A particular discourse concerning the greate necessitie and
manifold comodyties that are like to
grow to this Realme of Englande by
the westerne discoveries lately attempted, written in the yere I584, by
RichardeHakluyt.... at therequeste of Mr Walter Raleigh before
the comynge home of his two Barkes
[from Virginia, under Amidas and
Barlow]' in 63 large closely-written
folio pages; and, 2nd, two of the
original autograph log-books of Capt.
Luke Foxe's famous voyage in 1633
to Hudson's Bay.
These were all offered in May and
June 1853 to Mr Lenox, Mr Brown,
the British Museum, etc., but without
any luck. Finally in 1854they were
thrown into au&ion at Messrs Puttick & Simpson's, and were bought
by Sir Thomas Phillipps at prices
nearly equal to what I had asked.
Some years later when Dr Woods
came over to seek for original historic
materials




172   RECOLLECTIONS OF
materials on behalf of the Maine
Historical Society, I called his attention to this Hakluyt MS. He had
it transcribed, and it was carefully
edited and published as one of the
volumes of the Maine Historical Society's Collections, a book of inestimable value on the origin and history
of' Western Planting' by the English Nation.
This was one of my many bibliographical failures, but I have never
regretted my Saturday night and Sunday's experiences in that Arley book
chase. If I made mistakes in the
venture they were not so great as
those of the gentlemen and librarians
who declined to take the MSS. off
my hands. I was equally unsuccessful in offering several other unique
nuggets to Mr Lenox and others,
which have remained unique to this
day, as far as I know, such as 'The
Temple of Wisdom,' or Withers'
Abuses Stript and Whipt; with Bacon's Essays, printed by Bradford at
Philadelphia




MR JAMES LENOX       173
Philadelphia in I688, finally sold to
Mr Menzies for I 5 guineas, and the
original ' Line of Demarcation' Bull
of Alexander VI dividing the Indies
between Spain and Portugal, printed
at Rome in 1493 and dated May 4.
Also a large block-leaf printed about
1499 or o500 representing the Manners and Customs of the Natives of
America, described fully with a not
very clear fac-simile in my American
Bibliographer No I 8 54,' and in my
'Historical Nuggets' No 77 E I 2I 2s:
sold at auftion by Puttick & Simpson
at a sale of some of my books, May
8 1854 (No 27 America) and
bought in by myself in the name of
Marchant for ~3 13s 6d. It was
again sold by me at Puttick & Simpson's March 6 186 No 57 described
as before, and was bought by C. J.
Stewart the eminent Theological
Bookseller for fifteen guineas. In
I 866 the learned Henri Harrisse underhisNo 20 B.A.V. assigns the possession of it to the British Museum, and
in




174   RECOLLECTIONS OF
in I 885 Mr Justin Winsor in his
' Narrative History ' informs the
world with his usual accuracy that
'the only copy known was bought in
London at au&tion by the British
Museum for L3 13s 6d in I 854.'
On enquiry at the British Museum
in O&tober and November i 885, no
trace of this remarkable block-leaf
could be found, and the librarians notwithstanding this cumulative evidence do not think the leaf ever found
its way into the Library. I am unable
now to trace this leaf on account ofthe
death of Mr Stewart and the discontinuance of his business.
Another instance was the Second
Bay Psalm Book of 1647, in i 6mo,
sold to Mr Brinley for $500, and resold in his sale Part I No 850 for
the same price, the only other copy
known being in the Library of the
British Museum. Then there was
Franklin's 'Liberty and Necessity,'
London 1725, bought for 2s 6d,
offered to the British Museum with
its




MR JAMES LENOX        175
its story for one guinea and declined
on account of price, then offered to
Mr Brown and Mr Lenox at five
guineas and declined by both; subsequently thrown into auftion at
Messrs Puttick & Simpson's with
nearly a half page note, where it
fetched I9 guineas and was bought
by Mr Hotten against the British
Museum; on Mr Hotten's death in
1872 it was sold again by Puttick &
Simpson for ~22 os again against
the British Museum. Neither the
Museum nor Mr Brown nor Mr
Lenox ever secured this rare little
book. My own copy (for I had a
duplicate) is now slumbering in the
'Stevens Franklin Colletion' in the
Department of State at Washington,
bought by the United States Government in 88 for ~7,ooo, in which I
had valued it at 10oo.  It is rather
remarkable that both of the only two
copies now known out of the ioo that
Franklin printed himself at Palmer's
at the age of 8 should have thus
passed through my hands.
XXI




XXI
lThe Burns Autograph Manuscripts of
' Juld Lang Syne ' and ' Scots wha ha'
wi' Wallace bled.' Books in the
Indian Languages
FTER Mr Pickering's
death I bought the
better part of his
collection of original
manuscriptsof Robert
Burns, among which were the Autographs of 'Auld Lang Syne' and
' Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled'two gems that I thought would be
better appreciated in America than
even in Scotland. But I again found
that Mr Lenox's notion oftheir value
did not tally with my own. So after
keeping ' Auld Lang Syne' four or
five




MR JAMES LENOX        177
five years I sent it in 1859 by Capt
Judkins to New York, to be expressed by him to Albany to be in time for
the Burns Centenary Festival there.
Chancellor Pruyn had written me
about this proposed festival and asked
me to send him in time for it something startling.  I proposed that
' Auld Lang Syne' should be sung in
Albany from Burns' Autograph, but
there was not a moment to spare.
A railway guard by first train from
London Saturday morning undertook
to deliver the package personally into
the hands of Judkins on the ' Russia'
who had by telegraph been advised
what to expe&t, and he was requested
to use his best efforts to have it delivered to the train condudtor to
Albany as soon as he reached New
York. In this way the Song reached
Albany at nine o'clock in the evening
and was delivered into the hands of
Chancellor Pruyn, who at once interrupted the after-dinner speechmaking, and displaying his parcel reA A          quested




178   RECOLLECTIONS OF
quested all present to rise, join hands
and sing' Auld Lang Syne 'from the
poet's own handwriting, just received from London without an hour's
delay. The effe& was sublime, and
the Chancellor thought this acquisition cheap at ten guineas and
thanked me too.
The story of' Scots wha ha" was
equally interesting. It was written on
a single half sheet of quarto writing
paper, and cost me at au&ion ~33.
This purchase by me was mentioned
in the 'Times.' A few days later my
old friend David Laing of Edinburgh
wrote me that some years ago the
papers of the Earl of Buchan, the
correspondent of Washington, fell
into his hands, among them a letter
from Burns with the 'Battle of Bannockburn' attached, but the poem
had been detached, and he never
could hear of it. ' Now I suppose
you have the one leaf and I the other.
Pray send me the poem and I will
send you many others in exchange.'.              My




MR JAMES LENOX        179
My reply was a letter inclosing halfa
dozen of Burns'poems and letters,and
requesting him to send in exchange
his letter to Buchan; ' for the two
ought to come together again, never
to be separated, and then to go to
America where they would be so
highly appreciated.' By return Mr
Laing sent me the letter and I had
them neatly joined and bound in a
limp red morocco cover. This done,
with patriotic pride and much pleasure, I reported the beautiful little
volume to Mr Lenox at fifty guineas,
with scarcely any advance on the
costs. He declined it as too dear.
For nearly twenty years I retained
it as an interesting autograph with
which to astonish and out-brag my
friends, frequently offering it to libraries and colleitors at the fixed
price, but found no one to admire it
to the extent of fifty guineas, till my
old friend Charles Sumner came and
spent a morning with me during his
last visit to London. Said he,' I have
bought




I80   RECOLLECTIONS OF
bought to take home with me one or
two good engravings from Colnaghi,
an old book or two from Quaritch,
some old wine from Bond Street, and
now what striking relic that I can buy
and leave behindme can you suggest?'
I showed him my Burns and told him
its story, with its price, 'the reje&ted
of men.' ' What! Mr Lenox, a New
York son of a Scotchman, a colleftor
and a millionaire, decline that for a
paltry half-a-hundred guineas! I had
rather possess this " Scots wha ha"'
than anything else of the kind I can
name.'
So Charles Sumner by exchanging
a paltry cheque for fifty guineas on
Barings became the owner of what
he reckoned, during the short remainder of his life, the pride of his
mementos and memorials ofthe great,
and bequeathed it with the pomp of
circumstance to the Library of Harvard College, where it now rests ' A
thing of beauty and a joy for ever.'
The poor thing, like many other of
my




MR JAMES LENOX         x8I
my antiquarian and historical bantlings and pets, had eaten its head off,
but I loved and cherished it as the
bookmiser does his books.
In 18 5 2 I had acquired a large and
valuable colleftion of the rarest and
earliest booksinthe Indian Languages
of America. A full list with prices
and bibliographical descriptions and
collations was prepared, and the whole
offered to Mr Lenox. He promptly
declined nearly the whole as too dear,
and added moreover that he had not
made up his mind to invest in that
class of Americana.
Mr Brown shortly after came to
London and the colleftion was shown
to him. It attrafted his attention very
powerfully, but never having bought
many books of that class, he began
to diplomatize and delay, taking time
to make up his mind, but manifesting
a strong desire to possess the whole.
He however, after nibbling three or
four weeks, finally said that he was
going off to Paris and I need not reserve




I82    MR JAMES LENOX
serve the dear little volumes for him.
When he returned, perhaps he might
treat for them, but I was not to reserve them for him. Scarcely had
he turned his back for France when
Dr Cogswell showed up, with his
grand new Catalogue, not of the
Astor Library, but of thechief books
he intended to buy for the Astor
Library. He saw this linguistic colle6tion, and though not one of the
books was named among the Ioo,ooo
volumes of his future library, he
pounced upon the whole like an eagle
ever wide-awake and ready for his
prey. He swept the board without
any haggling about the prices. The
volumes went to the Astor Library
and Mr Brown never ceased mourning that lost opportunity. I am
not sure that Mr Lenox ever
manifested any particular
craving for American
linguistics.


XXII




XXII
Mr Lenox's method of recording his
books. Hisfailing health. 'he Stevens
Catalogue of the Lenox Library
proposed
N I855, when Mr Lenox was in London
before going to the
Continent, he came to
my house every day
for nearlya month, and we spent from
I o till 4 o'clock going over by divisions
all my stock of Bibles and books relating to America, he pronouncing his decision, yes or no, on every one with
remarkable promptitude and discrimination. At the same time, we went
over together all his many notes of
desiderata and imperfedions.  He
collated




I84   RECOLLECTIONS OF
collated very carefully every book he
bought, and then entered it or ticked
it off in some class catalogue, or interpolated a brief manuscript record
of it. The catalogues he used were
mainly, for Bibles, Lea Wilson, Cotton, Ebert and Pettigrew. For books
on America, Asia and Africa, he used
Rich and Ternaux-Compans with
MS. additions. These, togetherwith
his astonishing memory or details,
for a long time enabled him to steer
clear of duplicates, and to keep acomprehensive grasp of his accumulations. But it was overloading his
memory and taxing cruelly his brain
and health.
The amount of labour he performed in this way was prodigious,
and it was all his own. No one was
permitted to assist him. As he took
up subjefts and worked them out by
study, correspondence or otherwise,
he recorded the results in these temporary catalogues. The labor was
absorbing and immense. No doubt
in




MVR JAMES LENOX        I85
in time and in turn he would gladly
have taken up many of the subje~ts
and items I reported or submitted to
him, but he was pre-occupied and so
lost many an opportunity that occurs
to a colle~tor but once in a lifetime.
The wonder is not that he missed so
many chances, but rather that he
missed so few of them.
On my arrival in New York at the
beginning  of September i 868, I
found Mr Lenox despondent over
the burden of his catalogues. There
weremany signsof his breaking down
under their weight. His memory began already to fail to tell him where
particular books were deposited, and
it was not always easy for himself to
find his brief record of them, nor was
it possible for anyone else to find
either the books or the entry of them.
Under these circumstances our conversation was soon and naturally
led up to a new and complete catalogue, in a single alphabet, of his
entire library. I offered to make it
B B            for




86   RECOLLECTIONS OF
for him, in the highest style of scientific bibliography in my power, and
on my own responsibility, but under
his supervision. He eagerly entertained the idea, but was exceedingly
suspicious of the details and the possibility of carrying them out without
great personal inconvenience, and
bottomless risk to his books and
manuscripts.
Now that these stores of historical and literary nuggets had become
his, and were safely locked in his own
closets, he seemed to forget that a
very large portion of them had been
mine for months or even years; colleAed and kept in my possession, collated, completed, bound, described,
and reported to him with paternal care
and perfedt safety. However, after
many interviews and much discussion
for some six weeks as to the kind of
catalogue to be made, and as to how,
when and where the work could be
done, I finally on the 8th of November reduced the results of our deliberations,




MR JAMES LENOX        187
liberations, together with my own
notions, to writing and handed him
my first rough sketch of the proposed
catalogue of the C Lenox Library.'
Two days later he wrote that my
scheme brought ' the matter before
him in a more definite shape.'
We continued almost daily to discuss the details of our plans, so that
in a week he wrote, transmitting to
me ' a sample of titles down to Ternaux No l oo,' and intimated that
if this sample suited my purpose he
could go on as he had time. On my
telling him that his method, as long
as it omitted nothing as far as hewent,
was all I required for making my preliminary alphabetical list, he set to
work with trip-hammer earnestness
and speed, and in the course of less
than six months supplied me from
time to time with a brief but sufficient indication of nearly all the departments of his library, both printed
and manuscript. During this time
he was occasionally very ill from
over



x88   RECOLLECTIONS OF
over-work, and in his letter of May
10 I 8 69, he wrote, ' My physician
forbids my talking. The catalogue
must I fear bear the blame.' He finally broke down, and was obliged to
go into the country.
From Yonkers I 9 June he wrote,
'You spoke, I think, of coming back
in the late autumn or winter; and
I would rather you should do so....
I feel that any thing attempted now
would be done in a hurry, and certainly prove unsatisfatory. I must
therefore stop here, and now.' I had
by this time received his memoranda
or notes of his entire Americana in
all languages, his Miltons, his Bunyans, his Shakespeares, his Voyages
and Travels, his Bibles, etc. etc. Under these circumstances, instead of
returninz as proposed to London, I
decided to sit down in Boston and
New York for a few months, and
reduce my life-long observations into
shape by studying into the ' Age of
Discovery,' and especially into the
bibliography




MR JAMES LENOX         189
bibliography of the early voyages of
Columbus, Vespucci, and the first explorers of the new hemisphere. My
papers on Tehuantepec and the Cabots were some of the results in the
shape of Geographical Notes. I had
previously put into type, privately in
London, some 400 pages of bibliographical research respeding early
Bibles in all languages.


XXIII






XXIII
The Stevens' Catalogue agreed upon
and commenced. Correspondence
on the subject
l        N  the course of the
autumn of 1869 Mr
Lenox's health and
strength were such
that he resolved to
shift his burden by seeking an Adt
of Incorporation of C The Lenox Library,' and transferring all his colletions to the public. Early in 1 8 70
this A6t was passed, and the next time
I saw him he exclaimed, ' Well, you
now see what your doings have
brought about! I was obliged on account of my health to wash my hands
of the whole concern. Now, about
our




MR JAMES LENOX            191
our catalogue?' We had much correspondence and many interviews,
until finally, on the 31St of May, I
handed him duplicates of a letter I
had drawn up, setting forth the plan
of the proposed catalogue as far as
we could settle it, including estimates
of the cost in every particular. To
this the same day he replied in duplicate; the two letters thus forming
an agreement between Mr Lenox
and me for a complete and elaborate
printed catalogue of the Lenox Library.   This agreement, together
with a seleftion of the correspondence
preceding it, is printed in small type
below.
Clarendon Hotel, New York,
Nov. i8 i868.
To JAMES LENOX, Esq. 53 Fifth Avenue.DEAR SIR,-YOU wish a catalogue ofyour library. I am willing to undertake it at once,
and bring to bear upon it the results of my
study and experience for the last 25 years.
As I am now more free than I have been
for a long time, or expe& to be for the future,
it will suit my convenience better to discuss
the




192     RECOLLECTIONS OF
the matter with you now than to defer it.
If therefore you are disposed to treat with
me I think we can settle matters one way or
the other very speedily. No doubt we should
readily agree upon the main points of a good
common-sense alphabetical catalogue made
with the highest degree of accuracy, of collation and description, with all the improvements of the latest and best bibliography. I
do not know that I have quite determined
upon what to call the best scheme of arrangement, or the precise style of printing, but
as each book would be catalogued on a slip
by itself, all these details might be settled
when the MSS are nearly done, and we
have the bulk of our copy before us. The
catalogue would necessarily be in several
parts or divisions, such as Bibles, Books on
America, Voyages and Travels, Miscellaneous, etc., but I think it would be best to
prepare the copy for the whole before any
part goes to the press.
The modus operandi that would best suit
me would be to go through your library at
once, within the next two months, and make
on small slips a very brief one-line schedule,
generally under the headings the books would
appear in in a general alphabetical catalogue.
This work could I think be sufficiently well
done in two or three weeks, and would enable us to have the whole subje& fairly
before us. I would then return to London,
say




MR JAMES LENOX             193
say in January 1869, arrange the slips alphabetically, or in classes, as found most convenient, and print off, say half a dozen copies
in a very condensed form for our own private
use. This could cost very little. The titles
would be numbered, and as you would have
copies before you, all our correspondence
would be by numbers. This done I could
at once begin to look out all the titles and
notes that I have accumulated during the
last 25 years, and work them up with the aid
of the British Museum and the Bodleian.
In this way I could, I think, prepare seveneighths of the titles better than I could
possibly do them here, and have them ready
by the end of next summer. I would then
come to New York and apply my work to
your particular copies, revise the titles with
you, compare notes, settle discrepancies, and
finally edit and prepare the manuscripts for
the press. This I think we could do in three
months hard labor. When the MSS. of the
entire library are completed and we have
compared and settled all our researches, I
would again return to London and put the
work through Whittingham's hand-press as
fast as possible, keeping in your hands about
ioo pages of proof all the time and printing
off the sheets as fast as you could pass them.
This plan at present would best suit me, and
would give you, I think, the least amount of
trouble, but if a better or more expeditious
c c             plan




194     RECOLLECTIONS OF
plan could be devised, I should of course be
glad to adopt it. The work, if I go into it,
would be done con amore and not for mercenary profit. Still I must live, and should
expet a moderate remuneration in money.
I would suggest that I should have also that
part of the edition which will be for sale,
but I am not disposed to drive a bargain. I
wish to work up in the best form my accumulated materials in historyand bibliography.
I suppose therefore I ought to assume the
responsibility of the work and place my name
on the title-pages.
I will not to-day trouble you further.
Pray take these as preliminary hints for consideration and discussion. If you on reflection
are inclined to proceed with the matter, I
will meet you any day I am in town. I am
obliged to run round the country a good
deal within the next fortnight, but letters
here, or at 62 Cedar Street, will reach me
if I am away.
I am yours truly, HENRY STEVENS.
53 Fifth Avenue, zo Nov. I868.
HENRY STEVENS, Esq.-DEAR SIR,-I have
your letter of the 18th inst. in reference to
a catalogue. It brings the matter before me
in a more definite shape; but there is so
much to be said upon the subje&t that I
cannot undertake to write all I have to say.
When you may be in town, let me know,
and




MR JAMES LENOX             195
and I will try to arrange some opportunity
when you may be able to call and see me.
Yours very truly, J. LENox.
Friday night, 27 Nov. 1868.
H. STEVENS, Esq.-MY DEAR SIR,-I send
you a sample of titles down to Ternaux No
Ioo. It is not as neatly done as I should
desire: but will it suit your purpose? If
it will, I will go on as I have time. I have
just recolleAed that I have a list from which
I could probably make out a list of Bibles,
&c., in other languages than English: and of
American Bibles the titles of those in my possession may be culled from O'Coilaghan, of
which I presume you have a copy. Had I your
printed titles, I could cut them up and by
placing one in each of the volumes to which
it refers, those might be put on one side, and
thus render the cataloguing of the others
more easy.    Yours very truly, J. LENOX.
10 Dec. I868.
MY DEAR SIR,-I have nearly made myself
sick by preparing the accompanying papers:
viz. a list of MSS. and eight other portions of
my library. I find it no light work. I return
your list of German De Brys. I would like
to see you some little time before the day
fixed for your departure. If this matter is to
go on, it must be brought into a more definite shape, and that cannot probably be arranged




196     RECOLLECTIONS OF
ranged at one interview. On any morning
except Monday, I might see you at about halfpast 9 o'clock, except next week, when it would
not be convenient for me that you should
come on Friday or Saturday. If possible I
should like you to give me notice on the previous morning. Yours very truly,
H. STEVENS, Esq.           J. LENOX.
53 Fifth Avenue, I6 Dec. 1868.
DEAR SIR,....       When I next
see you I have some suggestions to make of
importance, before I can come to a decision
as to the plan of the catalogue. When you
come, please bring a copy of the estimate you
read me the other day. I wish to consider
it at leisure, that I may if praticable make
up my mind before you go away, as to the
whole matter.
Yours very truly, J. LENOX.
HENRY STEVENS, Esq.
53 Fifth Avenue, 9 Jan. 1869.
MY DEAR SIR,-I have your note of 5th
Jan. I have nothing at present to say to you
to take up your time. I wish however that
you would give me timely warning when you
shall have fixed upon the day of your departure. There are many matters which must
be determined before a positive resolution to
print can be arrived at, and they cannot be
resolved in a hurry. I have finished the Bib.
Americaine




MR JAMES LENOX             197
Americaine and also the Bib. Asiatique et
Africaine [ofTernaux-Compans]: the latter
was comparatively an easy task. I shall now
commence the Bibles, probably next week.
Yours very truly,
H. STEVENs, Esq.            J. LENOX.
[Extra&fs.]               15 Feb. 1869.
I have not been well...... I
have not proceeded with my list [of Bibles] as
rapidly as before, although I have nearly two
copy books full for you, but have not got
quite to the end of Lea Wilson. I must
again say to you that all our arrangements
must be made in person. It will not do to
leave anything to be settled by letter. I wish
to see exatly, as far as possible, what I am
about to undertake.
30 April 1869.
DEAR SIR,.....Your note
finds me in bed where I have been since midday yesterday, and I cannot tell when I shall
be up again and able to attend to business.
53 Fifth Avenue, io May 1869.
HENRY STEVENS, Esq.-MY DEAR SIR,-I
have been able to leave my room to-day for
the first time; but it will not be in my power
to see you this week. My physician forbids
my talking. The cataloguing must, I fear,
bear the blame. Yours very truly, J. LENOX.
Yonkers,




198    RECOLLECTIONS OF
Yonkers, Westchester Co. 19 June 1869.
HENRY STEVENS, Esq.-DEAR SIR,-I was
so busy before leaving the city, that I could
not ask you to see me again. I wanted to
examine your sketch of expense of catalogue
in order to come to some definite arrangement, and to make a change before any expense had been incurred. It is not a matter
that can be closed in haste. My sickness and
absence from town have caused delay, and
further delay must necessarily follow from
these and other circumstances. I have determined therefore to defer the whole subje&t
to a later time, when I am at home, and you
have less to do. You spoke, 1 think, of
coming back in the late autumn, or winter;
and I would rather you should do so, and
give yourself to this one matter; this could
be arranged hereafter by letter. I feel that
anything attempted now would be done in a
hurry, and certainly prove unsatisfaaory. I
must therefore stop here, and now,..
I am, dear Sir, Yours very truly,
JAMES LENOX.
[Bill] No. 9. In Senate, January 12 870.
Introduced on unanimous consent by Mr.
Tweed-read twice, and referred to the Committee on Literature.-Reported favourably
from said Committee, and committed to the
Committee of the whole. AN ACT to incorporate the trustees of the Lenox Library.
74




MR JAMES LENOX             199
74 Parker House, Boston, Feb. o10 1870.
MY DEAR SIR... Mr Murphy has just
sent me ' N.Y. Senate Bill No 9, Jan. 12
1870,' the Aft incorpofating the ' Lenox
Library.' It is short, clear, clean and com.
prehensive; but I cannot help mentioning
my being at Hartford a few days ago with
Mr Brinley. He said that Mr Lenox had at
last like Samson brought the whole fabric
down upon himself-meaning that the great
meddlesome American public would be down
upon you and worryyou to death. He hoped,
and so do I, you will be able to resist as heretofore, and keep matters within your own
hands for a long time to come; but I fear
your strength...
Yours truly, HENRY STEVENS.
JAMES LENOX, Esq. 53 Fifth Avenue, N.Y.
New York, i i th February 1870.
HENRY STEVENS, Esq.-MY DEAR SIR,Your letter of the loth inst. is just received...... If there be anything of the
Samson about me, I think it is only thisthat I pull down the edifice on others and
yet escape myself. By the way, I would like
to get, if such a thing exists, the regulations
of the British Museum as to the kind of books
given to general readers in the hall. Is an
introduction required? Do they allow the
use of pen and ink or only pencils? And
what are the regulations as to reserved books?
What




200     RECOLLECTIONS OF
What is the character of these? Introductions are required, no doubt, but of what
kind? I have the regulations in Paris, etc.,
and I have no doubt, at least 1 always felt
that when employed with such works I was
secretly watched, and I felt very well satisfied
that I should be watched. But I am not
aware that in London I was watched. Do
you know anything on the subje6t? I note
these things more as topics of conversation
when we meet than as asking you to answer
them at once. But I must close.
Yours very truly, J. LENOX.
Clarendon Hotel, New York,
May 31 1870.
MY DEAR SIR,-The imperial ofavo descriptive catalogue, such as we have discussed
for the year past, of your entire colleaion of
books and manuscripts, in one alphabet, with
historical, geographical, chronological notes
and illustrations, with full indexes, I estimate
will cost you, for best hand-made paper,
printing (including corredtions), illustrations
and binding, at the rate of ~6oo per volume
of 500 pages, everything in its way to be of
the best style and quality, something in appearance like that of Lord Spencer, but
superior in many points. The editions to
be 300 copies on the regular paper; 50
copies on the finest and best Dutch paper;
24 copies on very thin opaque strong writing
paper;




MR JAMES LENOX             201
paper; z copies on pure white vellum; or
376 copies in all of 4 sorts or editions. My
calculations are based on an estimate of
2,500 royal o6tavo pages, or 5 volumes, to
cost ~3,000 as follows: Composition and
printing 2,500 pages, 5 vols,.~1,250; paper
made to order, small, folding in 4to, 240
reams, ~4oo; binding 1.880 volumes in half
roan, uncut, ~I50; Printing and binding,
say 25 copies of the proposed hand catalogue,
say 12,500 titles, i line each, small type, thin
paper, very  close,   oo; Corrections,
foreign, difficult printing, reimposing for the
large paper copies, say ~Ioo per volume,
~ 50o; Illustrations seleced by Mr Stevens,
~500; expenses of correspondence and
transcripts, etc. in distant libraries, for the
whole, say  10oo, amounting to  3,00ooo; for
my services, for say two years, or more if
necessary, including my present collection of
copy, and work already done,,000o, besides
one half of each of the above-named four
editions, the cost bills payable quarterly if
desired, and my salary at the rate of ~50 a
month, beginning with April 1870, ~I,ooo;
amounting to ~4,000.
Yours truly, HENRY STEVENS.
JAMES LENOX, Esq. 53 Fifth Avenue, N.Y.
53 Fifth Avenue, May 31 1870.
DEAR SIR,-Your letter of this date on the
foregoing page states the result of our
D D             several




202     RECOLLECTIONS OF
several conversations respeAing the catalogue
of the Lenox Library, which you have undertaken to prepare and print. This is to be
considered as a maximum estimate of the cost
of such a work, to be modified hereafter upon
your arrival in England and consultation with
compositors,printers,etc., and such redu&tions
will be made and such alterations in detail as
may be suggested hereafter. Your previous investigations and preparations for an American
catalogue so called, and your experience in
different smaller publications of the same
kind, enable you to be more definite in your
calculations and estimate, than if the undertaking were perfe&ly new to you.
According to our understanding (not expressed in your letter) the work will be put
in form as soon as possible after your arrival
in London, be carried on by correspondence
and frequent communication between us;
and in November next I shall expet you
here to collate, compare and describe such
of my books as will require a very minute
examination, and to prepare for commencing
the printing of the catalogue.
I hope that both our lives may be continued to bring this work to a conclusion.
You have undertaken that it shall be, as far
as lies in your power, a catalogue sought after
by bibliographers and bibliomaniacs, and I
have little doubt that you can render it, I
will not say a perfeat work of the kind we
contemplate,




MR JAMES LENOX


203


contemplate, but approaching nearer to perfection than those attempted by your predecessors.
It is with this hope that I have agreed to
enter upon my part; and I think the conditions as expressed in your letter manifest
that I have done so in a liberal spirit. And
I say to you, what I think I may add without laying myself open to a charge of boastfulness or vanity, that few men having made
such a colleCtion as mine, know so much
about it as I do. I only wish that I knew
far more about my books than I do. I do
not intend to place myself in this respeCt upon
the same platform as that on which you
stand; but I do hope to be in some degree
helpful in the work.
My note however has stretched itself out
farther than I expeCted, but you have not
left me time to shorten it.
I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,
HENRY STEVENS, Esq.       JAMES LENOX.
New York, May 3I 1870. RECEIVED
this day One Hundred and Fifty pounds
sterling of James Lenox, Esq. on account of
three months salary according to the written
agreement. HENRY STEVENS.
Clarendon Hotel, New York,
May 31 1870.
MY DEAR SELF,-Please find enclosed a
Bill




204     RECOLLECTIONS OF
Sill of Exchange for fioo, being the first
2 months salary from Mr Lenox, April and
May. Now do turn over a new leaf and look
at both sides of your money before you spend
it. If you will take advice from any one, I
am sure you will from me. Be prudent, be
industrious, hold your tongue, and remember
that close mouths catch no flies. Go ahead
and carry out this great work for Mr Lenox,
and especially for the world and yourself.
You have the opportunity. Improve it, and
in two years let the world of book collectors
and bibliographers have the opportunity of
improving their minds. The writer intends
to embark on the ' Russia' to-morrow with
Mrs Stevens his wife, and Master Harry his
son bound for dear old England, after an
absence of 21i months.....So good bye
and good luck. Thine own,
HENRY STEVENS.
To HENRY STEVENS, Esq. G.M.B.
4 Trafalgar Square, W.C. London.
Liverpool, June I 1870.
MY DEAR SIR,-We reached Liverpool
this morning, all well. Hope to be in London
and in harness on Monday. There is nothing
new under the sun. Passing through Islington,
one of the good streets of Liverpool, this
morning, my eyes were attraded by a prominent sign in large gilt letters,
THE LENNOX PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Of




MIR JAMES LENOX


205


Of course I crossed the street and entered
the Institution.  It is on rather a small
scale, but calling to mind the fat that' tall
oaks from little acorns grow,' I inquired most
respectfully into its origin, history and
statistics. The result is enclosed in the
shape of the catalogue of this Public Library.
It is in fad Mr J. Lennox's private library,
held for the use of the public for a moderate
remuneration. I told the librarian, an intelligent young lady, that there was about to
be established an institution in New York,
for the use of the public, to be called 'The
Lenox Library.' She expressed great interest
in the matter, and said that she should be
glad to exchange catalogues. I told her that
I would with great pleasure forward her
catalogue [a 12~ tra& of about a dozen pages]
to the founder of the New York namesake,
but that I believe no catalogue of that
American library had yet appeared. I did
not enlighten her as to the difference between
the extent, aims or objeds of the two Institutions. I hope you will preserve this Liverpool catalogue and have it appropriately
bound. In haste, Yours truly,
HENRY STEVENS.
To JAMES LENOX, Esq.
53 Vth Avenue, New York.
The foregoing correspondence has
little use now, except as a memorial
of




206   RECOLLECTIONS OF
of an important literary enterprise
that was begun in earnest, but for
some reasons which I found it impossible to comprehend, was never
carried out.  In June I 870 I returned to London, and worked like
an infatuated slave, con amore, all
through that summer, in reducing
my bibliographical accumulations into working order, printing my ' Schedule' of some i,5oo nuggets in single
long lines, as a sort of specimen of
our preliminary ' one line' catalogue,
and putting up a sample sheet, to
show my idea of types, style, page,
illustration, paper, etc., with correfted
estimates of the whole work.
This all done to my own satisfadio n
I returned to New York in the following November to resume the
work over the Lenox books and
manuscripts for the winter of i870 -7 1. On our first interview I found
Mr Lenox unusually distant, grumpy
and formal. He appeared pale, nervous, and I thought, for the first time
with




MR JAMES LENOX        207
with me, a little cross, though exceedingly polite and yet not cordial.
He was sorry to see me he said, because he felt sure that nothing on
the catalogue could be done at present, or perhaps until the books
could be got out and removed to the
new library building, then in course
of erection. ' Besides,' he added, ' I
am afraid that you have so much
other work on hand that you will be
unable to give your attention sufficiently to the catalogue.' This was
new and unexpe&ed, so I let him do
most of the talking, hoping that by
this means his mind might soon clear
itself. 'Furthermore,' said he,' I have
been dreadfully disappointed that you
did not answer my several letters, to
which I attached much importance.'
To this I mildly replied that there
surely must somewhere be a mistake,
for I had certainly answered fully the
three letters in question, and could
show him my press copies of them;
and besides, I had received a reply to
one




20S   RECOLLECTIONS OF
one or two points in one of the long
letters! To this he shook his head and
smiled incoherently.
Fortunately for me, just at that
moment, he had occasion to unlock
and open a strong writing-desk between the front windows, when on
pulling out a drawer a roll of thin
papers fell to the floor. On picking
them up he stared at them for some
time; then putting his hand to his
forehead, exclaimed mournfully and
apologetically, ' Oh, my memory!
here are your three letters: they
were received of course, and I remember now having placed them
there for special reference, but can
remember nothing more about them.'
Immediately Mr Lenox was his dear
old self again, and we had a long and
earnest talk about the catalogue and
the ' Lenox Library,' but the painful
result was that he could not make
up his mind to let me go to work in
his house. It would fidget him to
death to leave anyone in the house,
and




MR JAMES LENOX       209
'and he must go out sometimes. After
many unavailing suggestions, I, fully
appreciating his timidity and apprehensions, agreed to postpone this
proposed work for the winter, or
perhaps till he was able to have a
room in the new library building
fitted up to receive a part if not the
whole of the books, so that I might
work uninterruptedly and to advantage on the catalogue from the
books themselves.
In the spring of I 87 1 I returned.
to London, and for many months
proceeded with the great work as
well as I could from my old materials
and from books in the British Museum
and elsewhere. But it was like painting portraits from dummies and
models. Mr Lenox had paid me
regularly my salary of fSo a month
from April to September I 870, and
then without any notice or explanation ceased remitting. Our correspondence however continued about
books, special subjets, and the proE E         gress




210   RECOLLECTIONS OF
gress of cataloguing for more than
two years, I frequently requesting
him to let me know when he was
ready to let me examine his books
and adapt my titles. That time was
constantly deferred, as the completion
of the library building was delayed.
Finally, towards the end of 873,
when the catalogue ought to have
been completed and printed, he wrote
me that hesupposedI had understood
that he had abandoned the work for
the present. He must have forgotten
that he had never written me to that
effedt; but as I found that the impediments were exceedingly unprofitable to me, and that now even
perfet success would be a pecuniary
loss to me, I let the matter drop silently into the pool of oblivion. I
dare say that Mr Lenox had some
good reason for not proceeding with
the catalogue, but if so he never acquainted me with it. However, my
three years of'posting up' my bibliographical studies were not all
thrown




MR JAMES LENOX       211
thrown away.   My studies and
business continued, and in  877 I
had the honour andpleasure of shunting a segment of my Bible bibliography, on very short notice, into
my ' Catalogue of Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition.' Other portions of
those accumulations are now (1i 885)
being worked up, with my son, in
the continuation of my C Historical
Nuggets.' Mr Lenox died in 18 8o0,
and the ' Lenox Library' is understood to be flourishing in New York,
but the ' Stevens Catalogue of the
Lenox Library' has never yet been
resumed, though the agreement
for the manufadture of it has
never yet been cancelled.


THE END.








CHISWICK PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO.,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.




-h
IIV
















To renewr WUseru        me du.I.
TWO WEEK BOOK
DO NOT RETURN BOOKS ON SUNDAY
DATE DUE


I


UL 09 3 3S2
Form 7079 3.50 30M S




'              UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
e-     -,3 9015 03360 6230
30V 7 139
*aR^Y. CvMH...-:
L&NO iAY,'