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Page 25
How fortunate it is for us that we have in our time so great a
scholar as Francis James Child, so enamored of balladry and so
learned in it, to complete and finish the work of his
predecessors. I count myself happy that I have heard from the
lips of this enthusiast several of the rarest and noblest of the
old British and old Scottish ballads; and I recall with pride
that he complimented me upon my spirited vocal rendering of
``Burd Isabel and Sir Patrick,'' ``Lang Johnny More,'' ``The Duke
o' Gordon's Daughter,'' and two or three other famous songs which
I had learned while sojourning among the humbler classes in the
North of England.
After paying our compliments to the Robin Hood garlands, to
Scott, to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, to Ritson, to Buchan, to
Motherwell, to Laing, to Christie, to Jamieson, and to the other
famous lovers and compilers of balladry, we fell to discoursing
of French song and of the service that Francis Mahony performed
for English-speaking humanity when he exploited in his inimitable
style those lyrics of the French and the Italian people which are
now ours as much as they are anybody else's.
Dear old Beranger! what wonder that Prout loved him, and what
wonder that we all love him? I have thirty odd editions of his
works, and I would walk farther to pick up a volume of his
lyrics than I would walk to secure any other book, excepting of
course a Horace. Beranger and I are old cronies. I have for the
great master a particularly tender feeling, and all on account of
Fanchonette.
But there--you know nothing of Fanchonette, because I have not
told you of her. She, too, should have been a book instead of
the dainty, coquettish Gallic maiden that she was.
IX
BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS, OLD AND NEW
Judge Methuen tells me that he fears what I have said about my
bookseller will create the impression that I am unkindly disposed
toward the bookselling craft. For the last fifty years I have
had uninterrupted dealings with booksellers, and none knows
better than the booksellers themselves that I particularly admire
them as a class. Visitors to my home have noticed that upon my
walls are hung noble portraits of Caxton, Wynkin de Worde,
Richard Pynson, John Wygthe, Rayne Wolfe, John Daye, Jacob
Tonson, Richard Johnes, John Dunton, and other famous old
printers and booksellers.
I have, too, a large collection of portraits of modern
booksellers, including a pen-and-ink sketch of Quaritch, a line
engraving of Rimell, and a very excellent etching of my dear
friend, the late Henry Stevens. One of the portraits is a
unique, for I had it painted myself, and I have never permitted
any copy to be made of it; it is of my bookseller, and it
represents him in the garb of a fisherman, holding his rod and
reel in one hand and the copy of the ``Compleat Angler'' in the
other.
Mr. Curwen speaks of booksellers as being ``singularly thrifty,
able, industrious, and persevering--in some few cases singularly
venturesome, liberal, and kind-hearted.'' My own observation and
experience have taught me that as a class booksellers are
exceptionally intelligent, ranking with printers in respect to
the variety and extent of their learning.
They have, however, this distinct advantage over the
printers--they are not brought in contact with the manifold
temptations to intemperance and profligacy which environ the
votaries of the art preservative of arts. Horace Smith has said
that ``were there no readers there certainly would be no writers;
clearly, therefore, the existence of writers depends upon the
existence of readers: and, of course, since the cause must be
antecedent to the effect, readers existed before writers. Yet,
on the other hand, if there were no writers there could be no
readers; so it would appear that writers must be antecedent to
readers.''
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