A GREAT BOOKSELLER

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 80, 28 December 1907, Page 13

A GREAT BOOKSELLER

- Boijnard Qiiaritch's : catalogues havo opon shblvfes of their own,in. the Round Room of tho British Musoum, alongside the State Papers and all the thumb-worn drudges of ready reference. But tho gfoat Bernard was' something mora than a seller and a listcompiler, for he, specialised | and published on his own account. The Crimea established his vogue as a source for tho literatures of ifiast'ern "Europe,^"and" he published in rapid suqeession grammars, and, glossaries in Russian, Turkish, Persian, and A'rabicl Meanwhilo, ho went on'buying and sweeping l all before him. Tho Bishop of Cashel's famous library came into tlio market, and, tho, modest corner ■ shopman who bagged his Mazarino .Bible for £595 camo to bo known as a dealer in this costly rarity, for in tho space of forty years lie had half .a' dozen copies of it through, his hands, arid one of them lie priced at £400Q.' ; . Thoso things are not captured in.tho teeth of'the traders .and turned to profit knowledge, courage, capital, and, patience. Vi'hon,, after .thirteen years, ; ho moved to Piccadilly . ho' had, spread -his reputation ororywhore, as ithe boldest wolf in tho pack, l and wherever books proved inaccessible tho' corinoisscufs had learned to come to Quaritch./ Ho never did justice to the contents of ■ the books he bought and sold—no man could) not even a'Magliabecchi; hut no one had such, a Jowls eye. for a Caxton or a Gutenberg, ,: a' rare old Codex or ,a Shakespeare quarto. ; If ever you pushed your way m through the-Piccadilly crowd and the narrow door which- served'for everj' purpose, you were safe "to see before you left some'' well-nigh priceless treasure of an oldor world —a crumbling Koran ior a Talmudic manuscript swathed in'a ragged'talith or a caiuelskin. ; - • - ■■ : • In Quaritch's 1 shop, - somehow, you got a peculiar srtiell of learning and antiquity that was unattainable elsowhere, except perhaps iii that liiio relic of tlio Middlo Ages, the I'lantin Museum: at 'Antwerp. ' Arid he<,was as taciturn., ;as a' mediaeval scholar. ' Conversation ho (lepised cxcopt among his cronies and tho quaint club lie formed called tlio '"Sctte;of Odde Volumes." lio rarely looked up from his desk, and.when he did he Bhowod an impatient, stern, arid enOrgotic ,faco, lit l by an implied but oloquent; reminder 'of the vahio of itinie. . iTho commonaltyi hearing-so much atonrtrtffifer fjibdlous'nvo'ajthi''wer6°'in-; clined to-doubt they bearded hirii' in his don and found him such a bont, unceremonious, unassuming figuro. One day, when the ontranco was unguarded, an itinerant pOdlar' bundled his wares' c intb.'tho 'shop, and, as lie strodo through 'avenueS of books, his basket'knocked hundred of pourids , : worth of learning to. the-'ground.i Whoii ho arrived 1 at the great -man's desk, : Quaritch, without lookjng up, enquirod his business, and-got the' abrtipfc, alarming challenge: ."Ten a penny, .walnuts!"' - : It was the only irioment,'so far .as ' I hiivo oyer heard, when tho greatest bookseller in the world fell into volubility.—From an ' article by "J.P.O. in the:Nbvember "Pall Mall Magazine'." l ,