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As for the foundlings like my Hedericus, they go among their peers; it is a pleasure to take them, from the dusty stall where they were elbowed by plebeian school-books and battered odd volumes, and give them Alduses and Elzevirs for companions. Nothing remains but the Infirmary. The most painful subjects are the unfortunates that have lost a cover.
The two men rose and moved about among those silent wits and philosophers, and, from the very embarrassment of the inner riches, fell to talking of letter-press and bindings, with maybe some effort on the part of each to seem the better acquainted with Caxton, the Elzevirs, and other like immortals.
Slates and primers became suddenly odious to a person aware of the existence of Aldines and Elzevirs, and bitten with the passion, then just let loose on the book-buying world, for first editions of the famous books of the century. Whenever that sum in the savings bank should have reached a certain height, he would become a second-hand bookseller with a stall.
New reflections on Blaeu's dilatoriness set him against him, especially as he was not satisfied with his Greek types : he therefore wrote to his brother, to consult with Vossius what he ought to do. "I would not, he adds, have recourse to the Elzevirs, not so much on account of this book, as of some others which I am preparing for the press, and which will not be to their taste."
Mr. Robert Heathcote had a most elegant library, in which might be seen the tallest Elzevirs and several Aldine classics 'in the chaste costume of Grolier. It is said that the books passed lightly into his hands 'in a convivial moment, much to their former owner's regret. About the year 1807 they passed into the miscellaneous crowd of Mr.
This was a Commentary on the New Testament, which Grotius imagined to be much in the manner of his, and which piqued his curiosity the more as Heinsius was Grotius's rival in literature, and his secret enemy. Heinsius's credit with the Elzevirs, who were his booksellers , was one of the reasons which hindered Grotius from employing them.
I possess two of the latter, a Terence and a Juvenal; the second, curiously enough, lettered "Juvenalus," a regular binder's blunder. They are called pocket editions, but are much larger than the Elzevirs, and, though very pretty, just miss that peculiar beauty and finish which have made the former the delight of all scholars.
A hundred years ago a famous bibliophile remarked: "The diminutiveness of a large portion, and the beauty of the whole, of the classics printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden and Amsterdam have long rendered them justly celebrated, and the prices they bear in public sales sufficiently demonstrate the estimation in which they are at present held."
The States were extremely pleased with it: they returned their thanks to the author, and made him a present . He afterwards added notes, serving for proofs of the several facts: these were carried away with his other papers at the time of his arrest; but the Elzevirs, intending to publish a new edition of it, acquainted Grotius, who was at pains to get the notes returned; and they are now printed at the end of the Elzevir edition.
The Houses of Plantin and the Elzevirs required no help in selling out their cheap editions. A good dedication was still a feather in the patron's cap.
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