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Page 34
XII
THE PLEASURES OF EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION
Very many years ago we became convinced--Judge Methuen and I
did--that there was nothing new in the world. I think it was
while we were in London and while we were deep in the many fads
of bibliomania that we arrived at this important conclusion.
We had been pursuing with enthusiasm the exciting delights of
extra-illustration, a practice sometimes known as Grangerism; the
friends of the practice call it by the former name, the enemies
by the latter. We were engaged at extra-illustrating Boswell's
life of Johnson, and had already got together somewhat more than
eleven thousand prints when we ran against a snag, an obstacle we
never could surmount. We agreed that our work would be
incomplete, and therefore vain, unless we secured a picture of
the book with which the great lexicographer knocked down Osborne,
the bookseller at Gray's Inn Gate.
Unhappily we were wholly in the dark as to what the title of that
book was, and, although we ransacked the British Museum and even
appealed to the learned Frognall Dibdin, we could not get a clew
to the identity of the volume. To be wholly frank with you, I
will say that both the Judge and I had wearied of the occupation;
moreover, it involved great expense, since we were content with
nothing but India proofs (those before letters preferred). So we
were glad of this excuse for abandoning the practice.
While we were contemplating a graceful retreat the Judge happened
to discover in the ``Natural History'' of Pliny a passage which
proved to our satisfaction that, so far from being a new or a
modern thing, the extra-illustration of books was of exceptional
antiquity. It seems that Atticus, the friend of Cicero, wrote a
book on the subject of portraits and portrait-painting, in the
course of which treatise he mentions that Marcus Varro
``conceived the very liberal idea of inserting, by some means or
another, in his numerous volumes, the portraits of several
hundred individuals, as he could not bear the idea that all
traces of their features should be lost or that the lapse of
centuries should get the better of mankind.''
``Thus,'' says Pliny, ``was he the inventor of a benefit to his
fellow-men that might have been envied by the gods themselves;
for not only did he confer immortality upon the originals of
these portraits, but he transmitted these portraits to all parts
of the earth, so that everywhere it might be possible for them to
be present, and for each to occupy his niche.''
Now, Pliny is not the only one who has contributed to the
immortalization of Marcus Varro. I have had among, my papers for
thirty years the verses which Judge Methuen dashed off (for poets
invariably dash off their poetry), and they are such pleasant
verses that I don't mind letting the world see them.
MARCUS VARRO
Marcus Varro went up and down
The places where old books were sold;
He ransacked all the shops in town
For pictures new and pictures old.
He gave the folk of earth no peace;
Snooping around by day and night,
He plied the trade in Rome and Greece
Of an insatiate Grangerite.
``Pictures!'' was evermore his cry--
``Pictures of old or recent date,''
And pictures only would he buy
Wherewith to ``extra-illustrate.''
Full many a tome of ancient type
And many a manuscript he took,
For nary purpose but to swipe
Their pictures for some other book.
While Marcus Varro plied his fad
There was not in the shops of Greece
A book or pamphlet to be had
That was not minus frontispiece.
Nor did he hesitate to ply
His baleful practices at home;
It was not possible to buy
A perfect book in all of Rome!
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