TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20098, 29 November 1930, Page 13

TRIVIA.

1 hnv<} boon a v•» i. , 'cast a bibliomaniac but never in th " —— Edmund Gosse. tloscr^nive Ir n nd Ua b n h r° X tom P llcd I,is I ~ , "'bhographical cataol el m "°T lote) ° f GossC. <:;t <tlon A ol '-»>«. Gosse wrote an it ,'i V 111 A|)olo ßy'' to be printed with not ?■? "* thnt the catalogue is not - though it need its ' llav evcn please them; rather' than'Ve ,,i "«? r,, P hi ';" 1 £S3iJ faB * , the ZLT ? 1 to Gosse ' or !it tc.ist Miggest.cd. his own life. covers' 1 oT'oach" Q a f confession; between the lurkß nn n* these specimens there iUothne ,o To fm ° te a " Ukos a I?™ 1 / afte/' 'SI": &£r- Urtn *\ but is °°* ,i£e Ainsi font font font LiCfl petites marionettes,Ainsi font font font Thft t ?" rs ' et p,,is *' en Vf>nt:n . > e *tes in one box, and the books dance. " Alas. "nij,'*| " " ew sct s,arts 0 new Ami th/- dear man at .t un H v „dds—us o"y he perhaps ton],] ( )o in the twentieth country without being sikly V. fl to those melanoholv reK Of course if they were mehmeholy rejections, the me.an;hoi;v was that v.nicb makos all session, all beauty, "IJ V ! H' 0 r * ' lor or lts shadow. out oh, the very reason why \ clasp tjiom is becaitfio they die"*- because the (infers rnu-*t i.tr-lose and the hloo-i <till tor ever, and possession he Mourned at last. This is the point ;ii wlueh se'fishness an i surrender intertivino. Gok.so. • >•.»> might swear on oath, subscribed •. elanse in Edmond de Goncmi' t \ s will: My wish is th, i.iy drawings, my prints my curiosities, oook..—in a word, those th ngs of nrt •> jiu n hav© been the joy of my lift,*—shail r»v ho cons ijned to the cold tomb of n th n* •■Mtu, and subjected to thestupid K'"' 1 '• "i ;he rp.ro'nsH pas.ser-by: but I r»'(juiro J:.' Khali nil be disp.-rM'fl undi*r fl.t' 1 • inmor of tho auctioneer, ho thnt the plpj\Miro whlrh the acquiring of <*hc)i one of thntn haw pjivon mo Khili bu sciv*-n in each caf-e, to some inheritor of mv own tastes. Oosse's library was sold tvhen he died

Fxtremeh pcrson.il though the colic tinn was, he would not let his personalitv clamp it together with the eold iron ham's oi law. once the w.-rmer ho.d of life had relaxed. Mr C'jx'b catalogue .s the better memorial, with the I'Vs.iv. of th'! "little 'el-o-;vt' ol hooks" that rcjirc entcd "the (aste.;, the habits, the and the re U'liremonts of the owner." It is the nct-rction of more than half i century of effort originally directed not tou-;!rils the (,-rnjition of u library, hut to \wil(ls the furniture of a mind. 1 have eul ected books not, in the main, because ihey were rare or euriouii, but because I wanted to read ther.i at my .eisure, a'id to hive them at rny side for reterence. Other consiite -ationp have intervened. There ha-, g'rnw.i up a certain pride in seeing that the,-e rentpanien. l ' and It-per.-i ive.-e in u'holeKoin. l condition, and clothed in appropriate g:arment*i. I have come to take s pr;de '.li their "state'' and ft caro for their pedl ;:ree. in short, the voracious realei has a most tincons'-iously developed into a collector. yet v. ilhonl ever ccas'>nfT to be essentially a roatle". I have never i.ddcd booUmerit of binding or peculiarity of imprint, j;.. 1 adot.t tie- e objects to be ,ei:it. mate. They <ln not happen to app.-al to me On the other hand, tny books have never been eo numerous as 'o make it diflienH io refer to thcrn all upon oetasion. and there is, 1 think, not one with which T am not on easy terms.

The voracious reader's bent was discerned in the bib und-tuekcr ago, when —he begs forgivenc.'s for "tne l'ui.uty ot speaking of his own chi.tlho'.d '—tlu' earl.est word he was knnvn to utter, |ir>:,?< d.ng such elements us •'Mania" and "'feco -gee," was "book" : and the infant ia.u his hand on a s, ecimen to prove that his prime vjcal ck'ort was no accident. Later, as a copying clerk in tho Department ot Printed 'Books at-the British Museum with marvellous opportunities equally tor official indoieire and for private reading, he would stand for whole afternoons in uie upper gallery oi -.. i King's Lihrarv or nmon" the Garrtcl plays, "absorbine with ceaseless appe'ite tho obscurer nnrts o c cventc century literature." Thus, while "cricket was not unpractised in remoter galleries and less audacious «p rits cultivated the pencil or the jew's-harp," Gosse was mastering his province. He had not yet begun to spend his money on it. That he began to do in 1575, when he left the Museum, with n narrow pur.'e and a fierce nppeI ite; but "how rich and great the times were then!"

Gosse applied himself to Restoration Plays, then scnrcjlv explored, und indole! by tho Elizabet and Jacobean rhapsodlsts. For the verv first ptnv hp bought, (< a clean tnll ronv of Sotitbcrnc's 'The Loval Brother.' of 1652," the prologue and epilogue being Dryden's. he paid hnlf a crown, and thought tho prieo ''extortionate. 91 Soon after, the seach besnn iti earnest. 1 think 1 was reallv started on my enterprise by goin? casually into a shop in Soho, where 1 remarked, with th" hunter'® excitrUiont, that the counter was heaped with <~UQVto p'ays of the seventeenth ••ontury. I felt like the African traveller who a idtUnly corner upon a water-hoe surrounded I*7 al! the of the drinking tor-ether in unity. The explanation of the phenomenon was that the hrokscller- -I for ?ot his name—had jusf bought en b'or tho library of a Mr John Keshaw. who h'd. apparently, indulged a particular fancy for clays. These had been suddenly deliverod to the purchaser, who must have bonjrht them like a rig in & ooKe, for he to know nothing of their relative va'ue, and wan onlv anxious to get rid of them ior a percentage of profit. Ther- wcro r**s lyinj? in that ignominious heap, and if I had only had in my pocket what a nnfrl© one of those plays would fetch to-day, I might have off laden with spoil There were things lying there which, in all the fifty v-cars since, I have never cast eyes upot, again. I emotied my poor pu so, however, to its uttermost penny, and I carried awav a goodly parcel, rontam-n;?, amongst other jewels, tho ear iest 1664 is up of Sir Georfo Ethered™?'® "The Comical Revenue; or Love in a o' whic 1 ! Relieve) no other copy h d at that tim© been met with. Tho im*>orta,nce of this plav ill tho history of drima pravo inturret to tho discovery of its Hate, which had hitherto been placed in IGFB.

Gosse hunted in noble company. His "earliest master in the science" was the poet John Warren, after- ! wards l.ord de Tablev. who would '"hang about Red Lion Square at si* in thn mTnin? wa't'ng f"r to talce down His shutters" —Salkeld, a ho celebrated in song when t>'e bookseller was bevond all cabs and ken, Far removed in realms transpontine His premises in Red Lion Square wore ( *iumbere:l beyond the cirenms of the most unt'dy of bookworms'*: An mtt-sr parlour wa« the haunt of the bibliopole* himself, who had e'eared ono rhnir and the corner of or«» table for hi* practical requirements. Elsewhere • fimrd, but Mr Salkeld'a ni'mo-y wis fior'nl. Ho vould point to a tottering tower of hooks and say. at the barn of that thce's a CJilea if vou vnnt to «*<*e it. r?ot ro hMf-tit l ** th'>M~h" X7n» stairs even the memory of Mr Sa?keTd w** at fau't. Here there was tio order no tables oVv «1 Bof book" on bro':en kitch«rt chairs: ord o T >er »>' dovca Mr —soOio rce bia er mv own free will in the upr»«r roo^*. "•■i „ fit 1 . r-o-cH ••■i'.'i the ; r long seclusion. th«>y used to lor.ve ' T'O to «2r~-{ the T n tbos-" ♦ho. hi**nbl rn wove a *PV b<vt on p'l of * eiona. Just as one was stooping to det&dx