'Being a
person who collected his books not for ostentation or ornament he seemed
no more solicitous about their dress than his own'; and therefore, says
the compiler of his catalogue, 'you'll find that a gilt back or a large
margin was very seldom any inducement to him to buy. It was sufficient to
him that he had the book.' 'The garniture of a book,' he would
observe,'was apt to recommend it to a great part of our modern
collectors'; he himself was not a mere nomenclator, and versed only in
title-pages, 'but had made that just and laudable use of his books which
would become all those that set up for collectors.' He was the possessor
of thirteen fine Caxtons, which fetched altogether less than two guineas
at his sale; the biddings seem to have been by the penny; and Mr. Clarke
in his _Repertorium Bibliographicum_ observed that the penny at that time
seems to have been more than the equivalent of our pound sterling in the
purchase of black-letter rarities.
CHAPTER XII.
GROLIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Jean Grolier, the prince of book-collectors, was born at Lyons in 1479.
His family had come originally from Verona, but had long been naturalised
in France. Several of his relations held civic offices; Etienne Grolier,
his father, was in charge of the taxes in the district of Lyons, and was
appointed treasurer of the Milanese territories at that time in the
occupation of the French. Jean Grolier succeeded his father in both these
employments.
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