Chats on autographs

CHATS ON
AUTOGRAPHS




BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS


  _With Coloured Frontispieces and many Illustrations._
  _Large Crown 8vo, cloth._

  CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA.
    By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE.
    By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON OLD PRINTS.
    By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON OLD SILVER.
    By E. L. LOWES.

  CHATS ON COSTUME.
    By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD.

  CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK.
    By E. L. LOWES.

  CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA.
    By J. F. BLACKER.

  CHATS ON MINIATURES.
    By J. J. FOSTER.

  CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE.
    By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
  (Companion Volume to "Chats on English China.")

  CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS.
    By A. M. BROADLEY.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: A.L.S. OF WILLIAM WILSON, AN ACTOR OF THE "FORTUNE"
THEATRE, TO EDWARD ALLEYN, OF DULWICH, 1620.

Frontispiece.]

       *       *       *       *       *




CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS

BY

A. M. BROADLEY

  AUTHOR OF "DR. JOHNSON AND MRS. THRALE," JOINT AUTHOR OF
      "NAPOLEON AND THE INVASION OF ENGLAND," "NELSON'S
            HARDY," "DUMOURIEZ AND THE DEFENCE OF
                 ENGLAND AGAINST NAPOLEON,"
                         ETC., ETC.

WITH ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS


    "An Autograph Collection may be made an admirable adjunct to
    the study of History and Biography."

        L. J. CIST
    [Preface to Tefft Catalogue, 1866]


      LONDON
  T. FISHER UNWIN
  ADELPHI TERRACE
       MCMX


       *       *       *       *       *


                          To

                  SIR ISAMBARD OWEN,

                D.C.L., M.D., F.R.C.P.

      HON. FELLOW OF DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
  FIRST DEPUTY CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES,
   AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL,
         A ROYAL AND FREE CITY, RENOWNED FOR THE
         RICHNESS OF ITS ARCHIVES, AND ITS CLOSE
           ASSOCIATION WITH MEN OF LETTERS,
    THIS VOLUME IS, WITH HIS PERMISSION, INSCRIBED
                     BY THE AUTHOR.

_THE KNAPP, BRADPOLE, May 6, 1910._

[_All rights reserved._]

       *       *       *       *       *




PREFACE

    "Life is a leaf of paper white
    Whereon each one of us may write
    His word or two--then comes the night."

        LOWELL.


Mr. T. Fisher Unwin has asked me to "chat" on autographs and autograph
collecting. Fifteen years ago the late Dr. George Birkbeck Hill
"talked" on the same subject in compliance with a similar request.
Still more recently Mr. Adrian H. Joline, of New York, has given the
world his "meditations" on a pursuit which another American unkindly
describes as "that dreadful fever," but which Mr. Joline, as well
as the present writer, regards in the light of "the most gentle of
emotions." Mr. Joline expressed, on the first page of his interesting
book, a profound conviction that nobody could by any possibility be
persuaded to read it unless already interested in the topic with
which it so effectively deals. One of the principal objects of the
_causeries_ I have undertaken to write is to reach, if possible, a
public to which the peculiar fascination and indescribable excitement
of the autograph cult are still unknown, and to demonstrate (to a
certain extent from my own personal experience), the practical utility,
as well as the possibilities of material profit, inherent in this
particular form of literary treasure-trove. For the benefit of the
uninitiated (and in this case the uninitiated are in a vast majority)
it is necessary at the onset to differentiate between the "Autograph
Fiend" (the phrase is, I believe, American in its origin), who pesters,
often with unpardonable persistence, well-known personages for their
signatures in albums or on photographs, and the discriminating
collector who accumulates for the benefit of posterity either important
documents or the letters of famous men. "Nothing," writes Horace
Walpole, "gives us so just an idea of an age as genuine letters, nay
history waits for its last seal from them."

Adopting the words of one of the most gifted letter-writers who ever
lived as a text, let me clearly define an autograph for the purposes of
these pages to be:--

_A letter or document written or signed by any given person._

An autograph collector, as I understand the term, is one who acquires
and arranges documents of the sort now described. A collector of
autograph signatures has nothing in common with the scientific
autograph collector. Those who deliberately cut signatures from
important letters are in reality the worst enemies both of the
autograph collector and the historian. Vandalism of this kind (often
committed in happy unconsciousness of the consequences) brings with it
its own punishment, for detached signatures are almost worthless. Many
years ago a dealer was offered sixteen genuine signatures of Samuel
Pepys, their owner naïvely remarking that "he had cut them from the
letters _to save trouble_."