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Clergymen and presidents of colleges have been known to be seized with it. The victim becomes more or less irresponsible, and presently runs mad. Such an one was John Bagford, of diabolical memory, who mutilated not less than ten thousand volumes to form his vast collection of title-pages.
On the title-pages of early school-books are sometimes found woodcuts which represent the children sitting, like the Indian schoolboy to-day, in crowds about their master, taking only the barest amount of space, and content with the steps of his desk or even the floor. 'In the school at St. Elizabeth', he says, 'nine B.A.'s read lectures at the same hour and in the same room.
In later years, after Amorbach's death, the marked advance in the output of the firm as regards type and paper and title-pages and designs may be attributed to Froben, who was man of business enough to realize the importance of getting good men to serve him Erasmus to edit books, Gerbell and Oecolampadius to correct the proofs, Graf and Holbein to provide the ornaments.
Yet another singular feature of the inquiry was that one woman had a poem in five or six of the magazines, and, stranger yet, always a good poem, so that no editor would have been justified in refusing it. There was a pretty frequent recurrence of names in the title-pages, and mostly these names were a warrant of quality, but not always of the author's best quality.
Let us turn to other title-pages; assuring all the world that no specific mountebank has been here intended, and that nothing more is meant than a nerveless blow against legal cant, quainter than Quarles's, and against that well-known species of Equity, which must have been so titled from like antiquated reasons with those that induced Numa and his company to call a dark grove, lucus.
Frequently, only the most important parts, such as the title-pages, prefaces, or a few pages at the beginning of each gospel or the Canon of the Mass, were written on vellum which had been prepared in this manner. Wanley, as may be seen from the foregoing letter, added to his knowledge of manuscripts a certain fondness for driving a bargain.
Be this as it may, a great number of plays-drama, comedy, farce, opera, operetta and ballet were jointly produced, as is shown by the title-pages of two score or more of their pieces. When Ludovic Halevy was a candidate for L'Academie he entered that glorious body in 1884 the question was ventilated by Pailleron: "What was the author's literary relation in his union with Meilhac?"
The old Librarian was a peculiar character, as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge, sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, their title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers who call for particular works, the value of different editions, and a good deal besides.
They appeared to the writer to be merely compilations from larger works; and, like the actors in the barn, who played the tragedy of "Hamlet," and omitted the character of the hero, so did these books leave out the very things which, from the title-pages, the purchaser expected to find in them.
The covers of this huge folio are bound with brass, beautiful illuminations by Le Brun adorn its title-pages, and then follows, in huge black characters, the music of the chants.
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