AUTOGRAPHS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1213, 31 May 1895, Page 11

AUTOGRAPHS.

DR BIRKBEOK HILL ON THE CRAZE. AN ENTERTAINING TALK. A-mongsfc the most interesting articles in the April magazines is one by Dr Birkbcck Hill on autographs, some selections from which our London correspond ent appends. It appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Apropos of the price of these cutioß Dr Hill notes that the rate for an average specimen of Dr Johnson's autograph letters has risen by about a pouud in the last nineteen years. In 1875 eighteen were sold by auction in London at an averayo of L 4 5s 8d a letter. Between 1888 and 1891 fifteen were sold at an average of five guineas. By some unexplainod chance, one which had fetched six guineas in 1875 went in 1888 for only L2 83 ; on the other hand, the price of another rose from L 6 15s to LlO. But for the highly characteristic letter in which the sturdy old man wrote to Macpherson, the alleged discoverer of the alleged poems of Ossian—" I will not desist from detecting what I think a cheat from any fear of the menaces of a ruffian"—no less than fifty pounds were given ("and well given, too," says Dr Hill) in 1875. It was in 1888 that, to the great astonishment of collectors, forty pounds were bidden and paid for a curt note from Johnson to Goldsmith, here quoted. It merely excused the Doctor's absence from the Club, and begged that he might be considered as proposing " W. Boswel" (sic) as " a candidate of our society." Ifc was knocked down for forty pounds. This was at the rate of over twelve shillings a word ; but even forty-six pounds were given at the same sale for the letter from Johnson to Cave, to the signature of which is appended the word " impraneus," which Boswell considers a fair confession that the writer had not a dinner, and which certainly indicates that he had not dined. " What,"

asks Dr Hill, *' would have beeu the amazement of the ' very good company' with whom the young author fresh from Liuhfield used to dine at the Apple Tree, could thej' have known that the day would could when for hi 3 hint that he wanted a dinner enough would be given to pay his daily tavern bill for nearly four full years ?" The " impransus " letter had I only beeu sold a little earlier for LB, whence it would appear that a skilled and shrewd | observer of the autograph market might J invest with advantage in these somewhat uncertain Jiteraiy wares. There scorns, however, to be reason to suspect that competition on this occasion was stimulated by an ingenious system of collusion. These particulars undoubtedly suggest that those persovering autograph hunters from whom eminent men of all classes have suffered so meekly and so long may not be the mere misguided enthusiasts which they are generally considered, but may be working on a far-seeing plan for accumulating valuable property. The late Mr Russell Lowell, who endured much in this way, once wrote : "I am thinking seriously of getting a good former from the State's prison to do my autographs for me ; but I auppose the unconvicted followers of the same calling would raise the cry of 'convict labour.'" Dr Hill suggests that it is time that the autograph hunters shouldadopt " honester and gentler means"; to this end he sketches a sort of model letter to a distinguished poet as follows : "Dear sir,— My love for your writings find 3 no other vent for its expression but in a way which I trust will not offend you by its being less spiritual than I could have wished. Will you accept a barrel of oysters which lam venturing to send you, as a-slight proof of my admiration for your genius? —I am;, &c, Autograph Hunter. P.S. — When you acknowledge the receipt of the oysters, I should esteem it a great favour if you would do so in verse." It was not, however, to discourse of the traffic in autographs that the Atlantic Monthly's contributor took pen in hand, but rather to give some samples of what ho calls "my own modest collection," with comments and illustrative anecdotes. The first is a letter dated July 27, 1826, from Miss Edgeworth to her publisher, Mr Hunter, in St. Paul's Churchyard, but it is mainly interesting for the copy that it encloses of a letter from "one of my American intelligences," which shows the position nearly seventy years since of popular ENGLISH AUTHORS AND AMERICAN HEADERS. Your great & good friend Sir Walter Scott's last work Woodstock has met with the most brilliant reception among us and I regret much that the large profits of his American publishers cannot be divided with this inimitable writer.—Messrs Carey and Lea purchased the printed sheets from the English publishers for Ll5O and they were sent out to them as fast as they were printed & before they were bound ; they were reprinted here, bound & distribute 1 in most of our principal cities three weeks before a complete English copy arrived in this country. The sheets for the last vol. arrived in duplicate on board of three different ships which came to N. York oh the same day & within a few hours of each other. They were sent to this city by express & within 23 \ hours after their receipt they were printed folded and bound for sale. There were 185 persons employed in the various parts of this expeditious business. The public were equally prompt in purchasing as the enterprising booksellers were in publishing. The work was for sale at ten o'clock on Saturday morning—& in the evening of the same day there wore short of 1000 copies left on hand. The edition consisted of 9000 copies. Messrs Carey and Lea contemplate publishing another edition of 3 or 4000 copies. There will be editions published in Boston, N. York, and other cities in a short time—We have great advantage over you in the cheapness of books in this country. Woodstock for example was putlished in England in 3 vols, and sold for thirty-one shillings (lb Dollars) —it was republished here in 2 vols. & sold for 1 1 Dollars or Gs 9d—Most books are publiehed'at the same economical rate & few persons are so poor as to be unable to purchase as many as they desire to read.

Nearly four months earlieU the illustrious author of " WaverJey " had made the entry in his diary : " I have the extraordinary and gratifying news that ' Woodstock ' is soJd for L 8228, ready money—a matchless sale for loss than three months' work." Apropos oi Miss Edgoworth, the writer is reminded that in a copy, which he bought secondhand, of her memoir 3 of her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, he has found the following amusing manuscript note :

eon't tey to keep the tbuth down. Maria Edgeworth was plain. Her friend, Eev H. Croiton, used to say of her that " her beauty was turned outside in," and to her, "Maria, God has not. given you beauty, but he haß given you a soul, & that is more than He vouchsafes to all women." One day she called on Mrs Crofton, when Sarah Frances, then a very little girl, was in the room ; she said, " Mamma, is it that ugly lady who tells such pretty stories ?" " Hash, hush/'jsaid her mother. Miss Edgeworth laughing said, " Now, Fanny, don't try to keep the truth down, for lam ugly, &I do tell pretty stories." A very characteristic letter follows from Miss Martineau, about slaves and politics in February, 1863, in the United States, then in the midst of the Civil War. There is also a brief note from Charles Lamb, inviting to dinner, John Scott, editor of The Champion, who was subsequently killed in a duel by Mr Christie, who, as Talfourd says, '* went out resolved not to harm association reminds Dr Hill ofjji fcfcable example of "three

" ROLLED INTO ONE." | In the index of Canon Ainger's edition of Lamb's Letters there is a strange confounding of three persons under the article John Scott. There are mixed up in one whole John Scott of Amwell, the Quakor poet, who hated " That drum's discordant sound, Which goes parading round and round ;" Lord Nelson's secretary, whose name also was Scott; killed by his master's side at Trafalgar ; and John Scott, the editor, who, to add to the confusion, having been shot by Mr Christie, is stated to have fallen in a duel with Lockhaifc. Then comes a correspondence between the writer and Mr Ruskin, apropos of objections taken by some captious persons [—presumptively not readers of Plomer — to the Slade Professor's reference to motionless clouds ; together with a note, written in 1858, in the postscript to which Mr Ruskin says : " TELL JONES" I " His glass won't quite do. I want to talk ! to him about it but can t tind a day,—but he ought to get a bit of pure 13th century glass done, and put beside his; then he would feel what is wanted I fancy, namely greater grace in the interlacing forms and more distinctness in the figures as emergent from ground." "Jones" (observes Dr Hill) is our great painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones. I should, not have given his name had I not received his permission. He has no doubt, he sends me word, the criticism was entirely just, but no one had the hardihood to tell him of it, so he has never heard it till now. One hot June morning, thirty-seven years ago, I watched him painting a cluster of crown lillies in the garden of Red Lion Square. It was, I believe, the first time that he worked in oils.

In another autograph note, under date March 15th, 1815, the famous Lord Chancellor Eldon expresses a hope that he did not disgrace his situation as a magistrate *' when he came into contact with the rioters," and remarks that '.'♦ whether the mob only sleep, or have ceased toexist, seems very uncertain." Tho "mob" had, it appears, risen just then an increased tax on corn, and had torn up the iron railings in front o£ his Lordship's house in Bedford-square, and used them as crowbars to lorce an entrance. Dr Hill's just description of the situation is: " The misery of the people was already great, and once more legislation was to make it still greater." This first instalment of the writer's autograph gossip ends with a letter, dated November 19/ 1810, from Lord Eldon's eldest brother, William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, the,great Admiralty judge, giving a description of one of the poor old mad King's lucid intervals, which is the more pathetic because this was the year of the " Jubilee," when bonfires burned and bells were set ringing throughout the three kingdoms in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of *'his Majesty's happy reign."