Volume 1

Curiosities of literature / edited with memoirs and notes by his son, B. Disraeli.

  • Disraeli, Isaac, 1766-1848.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curiosities of literature / edited with memoirs and notes by his son, B. Disraeli. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    63/536 (page 11)
    less the eyes are fatigued in reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of it: and as we perceive more clearly the excellences and defects of a printed book than when in MS.; so we see them more plain!}’- in good paper and clear type, than when the impression and paper are both bad. He always purchased first editions, and never waited for second ones ; though it is the opinion of some that a first edition is only to be considered as an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has tried the sentiments of the literary world. Bayle approves of Ancillon’s plan. Those who wait for a book till it is reprinted, show plainly that they prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of knowledge. With one of these persons, who waited for a second edition, which never appeared, a literary man argued, that it was better to have two editions of a book rather than to deprive himself of the advantage which the reading of the first might procure him. It has frequently happened, besides, that in second editions, the author omits, as well as adds, or makes alterations from prudential reasons; the displeasing truths which he corrects, as he might call them, are so many losses incurred by Truth itself. There is an advantage in comparing the first and subsequent editions; among other things, we feel great satisfaction in tracing the variations of a work after its revision. There are also other secrets, well known to the intelligent curious, who are versed in affairs relatiug to books. Many first editions are not to be purchased for the treble value of later ones. The collector we have noticed frequently said, as is related of Virgil, “I collect gold from Ennius’s dung.” I find, in some neglected authors, particular things, not elsewhere to be found. He read many of these, but not with equal attention—“ Sicut canis ad Nilum, bibens et fugiens like a dog at the Nile, drinking and running. Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and pleasure they may derive from its possession. Students, who know much, and still thirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks. constantly collecting tliem, so that he ultimately possessed one of the finest private libraries in France. For very many years his life passed peaceably and happily amid his books and his duties, when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove him from his country. His noble library was scat- tered at waste-paper prices, “thus in a single day was destroyed the labour, care, and expense of forty-four years.” He died seven years after- wards at Brandenburg.